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Hi!
I am a psychology student and a SC2 player (have played prize level in other games). My psych degree is soon done, and I see the problem with ladder anxiety as a real challenge for SC2 in competition with more casual platforms (like Dota/LoL).
Blizzard have introduced a rather brutal league-system that directly connects your identity and ego with a league. This is probably part of the cause of the ladder anxiety phenomenon in SC2. Another factor is SC2’s focus on 1v1s, which is by far the most emotionally intense form of competition (eliminated in LoL/Dota/CS/etc by focusing on team play), and much of the reason why SC2 has relatively few casual gamers.
Reducing ladder (and tournament) anxiety in general is the main focus of this article. It also touches on related subjects; getting demoted and general lack of enjoyment with the game due to performance pressure.
The approach below is based on affect research and the cognitive-behavioral approach. First is a detailed scientific discussion aimed at those with high ladder/tournament anxiety, who have simply stopped playing - and at the bottom is a TL;DR for everyone. There will be tips to improve, but the main goal of this article is to A) decrease irrational anxiety and B) increase real enjoyment.
Off we go!
Why do we get ladder anxiety?
In psychology, emotions (anxiety) are thought to come from automatic evaluations of consequences, called “appraisals”.
The problem with appraisals is just that - they are automatic. So - when evaluating the concept of ladder play, if the consequences of a "ladder loss" is uncertain in your brain, the appraisals are forced to make something up. For survival reasons, appraisals usually want to be on the safe side. This can result in an "appraisal of doom" - for instance when you think about a ladder loss as a potential disaster. It works the same way with public speeches or exams.
Secondly, we not only expect negative consequences of laddering, but also positive effects (winning and glory) and “cost” effects like exhaustion. All these expectations can combine to create high adrenaline activation before games - especially when you play rarely.
A final irrational factor affecting us, is misunderstanding what emotion you are experiencing - something humans do surprisingly often, especially in combination with adrenaline. We will address this below.
For most people, the combination of doom appraisals and adrenaline activation is probably what constitutes "ladder anxiety". The good news is that these effects are quite normal and quite fixable.
How do we remove these irrational fears?
Accepting adrenaline
In 1962, Schachter-Singer in an experiment injected two groups of people with adrenaline - the first group was told that they would be injected with adrenaline and how it would feel. The other group were told nothing. The result: The informed group simply reported the expected body sensations, while the un-informed group reported strong fear. In other words, reducing fear can be as simple as *knowing about adrenaline*!
Adrenaline is a normal part of life, but it is common for people who are new at competitive activities, to be disturbed by it. As seen above, it is not only triggered by expectation of failure, but also by expecting success and effort. However, the adrenaline rush is not supposed to be a bad feeling.
So as an anxious player, before you start up SC2, prepare for that adrenaline injection. Pay attention to your adrenaline level as it is rising. Remember: That is **not fear** you’re feeling - it is **adrenaline**. Here's how it is supposed to feel: Faster heartrate and breathing, intense visual focus, strong “tunnel attention", increased reactivity (strengthened startle response).
There are also more bodily effects like dry mouth, sweaty palms etc.
Accept that the adrenaline rush is there, and that it is not the same as "fear". If you are caught off guard by adrenaline - realize that your mind is still alive and working beneath the adrenaline noise! Adrenaline won’t make you a worse player - as long as you are aware of it.
So - accept adrenaline! Welcome adrenaline as an awkward guest - why, wear adrenaline as a silly hat! You will find that your real state of mind is **separate** from the adrenaline. The adrenaline rush will soon stabilize and maybe even start helping you.
Remove unrealistic appraisals
As mentioned above, if the outcome of playing a ladder game is uncertain, appraisals can create emotions from a hypothetical, extrapolated situation and create an "appraisal of doom" that will keep generating fear in your brain. The cure here is quite simple - take some time to think realistically about what could happen after a loss.
"What's the worst that could happen?". Will I be demoted? Will my opponent mock me when I am most vulnerable? Etc. This is the time to be cold and realistic, and use statistics and facts. Pick "boring" conclusions - do not allow any feelings to affect your reappraisal, but make it solid and real. And keep in mind the fact that an SC2 ladder loss is just numbers in a Blizzard database. It does not represent a tendency. It does not have to rely on skill. Your account is not You, and You can always get a new account.
No matter how you do it, for most people, the chances are that even the most gruesome realism, is a lot more relaxing and controllable than a blind "appraisal of doom".
So - essentially, a “worst case” approach can reduce fear, it can also give you more realism about what exactly bothers you with losses. However, there are some cases where re-appraising the consequences is not enough to calm you down. Say, if you have 10 diamond league buddies, or you bragged about being Gold at work, or you got yourself a "pLaTiNum LeAgUe tOSs" tribal tattoo on your ass - what happens if you get demoted? Could this change “who you are”? We will address these more ego-related issues in the section "Current Skill level".
Exposure to the fear-situation.
Playing games is the most obvious way to get rid of ladder anxiety. Playing will, on it’s own, lower the adrenaline levels without any "psychology tricks", and it will generate more realistic, and statistically correct, appraisals based on actual losses. This part is quite simple in theory - if you manage to play that first game, you will find that the second and third usually come with little effort.
But in some cases of ladder anxiety, we need to be more methodical and scientific. Normally for playing games, you listen to your feelings. What if your feelings are anxiety and fear, when do you even sit down to play? Here’s one approach you can use as “homework”:
First, look at a sample of five games from your game history. You will find that five random games from your game history will contain any combination of W/L/L/W/L, L/W/L/L/L, etc. (There are 32 possible combinations).
Decide to play five games in a row, say, twice a week, and calmly note on a piece of paper the sequence of W/Ls. The point here is to observe a random set of wins/losses, to feel how each "sequence" feels different and affects you differently, and to observe how the five matches don’t represent a tendency.
The losses (not the wins) are the most important part of this. Try to predict your fear and adrenaline level before each game. Realize that the first match will be worst. Some people may note, for instance, that a loss in the first game, will create the most relaxing configurations of 5 games - by automatically lowering expectations.
Reduce social tension
1v1-best-of-one is a tense competitive setting. But for certain people, there could be a feeling of "mutual hatred" or other types of perceived social threat. They may see themselves as just an anxious ladder victim trying to do his/her best, while their opponent is seen as a cruel figure out to hurt them emotionally.
This contrasts what most of us know from RL meetups: 1) Most SC2-players are friendly, and often have a lot in common with you. In real life, they will credit you on your wins and comfort you in your losses. 2) There's really not that much on the line - it's just a BO1. You wouldn't care much about a GSL BO1, so why does a ladder BO1 feel like a duel to the death?
A good way to approach this perceived social threat, is (as recommended by Mr. Black in this thread); Talk to your opponent. Experiment with good manners (especially after the game), the results could be surprising. While some people simply hate other people, humans are genetically social, and most are likely to want to be friendly.
Finding your Current Skill level - minimize ego effects and start your climbing
The "rat race" of SC2
In the beginning of SC2, lets admit it, we all hoped to be champions. It is a scientific fact that humans usually over-estimate our expected performance. Males do this the most, and as for male gaming nerds - we are all alpha males inside our heads, and we probably over-expect success more than anyone else.
High expectations are generally bad. They will amplify the adrenaline before matches, and will amplify the feeling of punishment after a loss. It is fair to assume that over-expectation of performance has resulted in a general high tension all across Battle.Net for the first year of SC2 laddering - all those matches with two adrenaline-pumped players trying to reach the top, giving 130% performance and shouting at each other. (I'm guilty of all of the above)
How fun has this been, really? For many of us - not very. Some of us stayed hooked on SC2 ladder by being stubborn, or by dismissing our losses as bullshit. Still, the over-expectations of our skill has kept giving us a sense of disappointment when faced with our actual skill. In some cases, it has resulted in rage. Rage and disappointment, excellent way to spend your sparetime, right?
Dealing with unrealistic expectations
I personally know several people who just stopped playing based on not wanting to get demoted. Others keep their unrealistic placements alive by cheesing, and some play only when they are at 130% performance, staying alive by overperforming every time. These people would rather keep an “undeserved” gold league placement, than to give up their fantasy - their over-estimatated perception of skill.
Postponing realism like this, keeps them from enjoying, and more importantly - playing, ladder.
To contrast these unrealistic self-views, split your expectations into two:
* "Current skill" - this is your temporary skill, at the current point of time, that you have in SC2. Be brutally honest (and if you are a typical man, maybe even a bit humble). Realize that changes in the metagame can reduce your Current Skill temporarily. The more honest you are about this, the more effective it is!
* "Future skill" - what you can become in the future. This is where you let the cocky, optimistic, over-estimating part of your personality loose. Just keep in mind that it can’t be applied to your next game.
Separate Current and Future skill.
These are two different realities, make sure they stay separate. Yes, your specific brand of awesomeness may realistically place you in Masters in the future, but face it - today and tomorrow, you are Gold. In this case: "Current skill" = Gold. "Future skill" = Masters. To realize this distinction, is a very very healthy thing.
Keep in mind that "Current Skill" is temporary - there’s really not that much to lose from accepting it. But there’s a lot to gain! If you don't want to put your account on the line to explore your “Current Skill”, a good compromise is to buy an additional SC2 “smurfing” account. Could be worth it - your smurf copy of SC2 might be a lot more fun than the first.
Demotion can be good
Finding your "Current Skill" is a goldmine. It’s the fundament of improvement, and of having fun. In other words, if you are ranked above ability in Plat, it is good for you to lose and get demoted and have your MMR reduced:
* First and foremost, it's more relaxing - at your Current Skill, you will be able to play at a lower effort level, less concentration and alertness, which will decrease any adrenaline issues.
* It will decrease your treshold for pressing “Find game”, which will lead to more games played.
* If you accept the new position and take it as a challenge, you will experience less losses and more positive emotions, which will promote a "creative" approach to playing. Testing things out is fundamental to getting better.
* You will get a higher expectation of control and mastery, leading to "self-efficacy". Self-efficacy is proven to be strongly performance-enhancing and is connected to the delicious feeling of "flow". On the other hand - playing at a higher level than you should, which many SC2ers probably do, will give a low sense of self-efficacy, and worse performance.
Once you have established your “Current Skill”, play around with it. Cheese a little, try out wonky builds, play while talking to people in the room, or other challenges - see how far you can stretch your “Current Skill”. In short: Establish a safe, relaxed platform for your Current Skill. Make a cozy little SC2 house for your ego.
Replays
Another important step in finding your "Current Skill" and estimating a realistic "Future Skill", is to watch your loss replays.
To increase learning, watch the loss as soon after the match as possible. Fast-forward through replays if you must, but note three (3) most important things you could have done better. Also, note at least one thing that your opponent did right - even if it was something as stupid as gambling for a 7pool.
Analyzing losses is the most performance-enhancing thing you can do in any competitive setting, and acknowledging your opponent's correct choices, will make accepting losses easier, which will in turn modify appraisals and reduce fear, anger and disappointment.
There is no balance
Introducing balance terms into your interpretation of SC2 losses, could certainly be interesting from a "moral", and intellectual point of view. I mean, SC2 is a complex equation of battle math, of course this attracts our geeky minds. Not to mention to put those low-riding fuckers playing “race X” in place!
But blaming balance will cause a confusing overestimation of "Current Skill" and "Future Skill”. This will make SC2 a shitty experience, give “low self-efficacy”, and stop your progress. Balance grudges can cause ladder anxiety, frequent disappointments, and get in the way of improvement and enjoyment. It needs to be thrown out.
I'm not saying that SC2 is balanced, but I am saying that people who can ignore balance issues will probably be better and happier players. We can discuss balance occasionally, but keep it far away from ladder games. Does it really matter if a player of "race X" get undeserved wins? Or are his wins even undeserved? The best antidote against balance grudges, if you really can’t ignore them, is to try out other races (also more doable with a test account)
TL;DR:
* You have ladder anxiety, and you are a human. Try to be analytic, and eliminate emotions in your thoughts about gaming. They’re not informative or helping.
* Don't let your "ladder anxiety" choose when you play SC2. Then you will never play again! To start up, rather than playing "when you feel like it", try to schedule in advance when to play, and when to stop playing. (I used 5 games as an example)
* Consider buying a smurf account to reduce ego issues.
* Get used to adrenaline. Realize that adrenaline is not fear. Realize that adrenaline does not control your consciousness unless you insist on letting it.
* Analyze losses before they happen.
* Analyze losses after they happen.
And finally, establish your real, Current Skill level. Embrace that knowledge. Grow from there. Is it better to play several times a day, with creativeness and self-confidence, in Platinum - or to be stressed out, play once a week, static and repetitive in Diamond?
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This is a very good read !
Good job and thank you
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I like this approach to the ladder anxiety. I have felt anxiety over seasons 2 and 3 but slowly got back into playing. I can't play more than about 10 games a day before i get really frustrated.
Yeah i set a goal of 5 games a day and i hope that really helps the ladder problem
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This is super interesting!
edit: No sarcasm**
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I noticed a fair amount of emphasis on pointing out that there are many people who placed high, then stopped playing for fear of getting demoted. These people play their one placement match a season (usually during the Ladder Lock) and will be able to float their league rank for eternity (~ 30 games to recalculate a player's league will mean that at 1 game per season, they will be demoted in roughly 2016).
If Blizzard's goal was to get more players active on the ladder, they could turn this rather sizable user base into active players by having their MMR's (and thus, their league placements) decay while inactive. There would certainly be a percentage who would stop playing altogether if this happened, but more likely, their desire to preserve their league status would compel a larger portion back into consistent ladder action.
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Thank you. Nice write up. Very informative.
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Great write-up!  There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view?
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Fear of being demoted, general anxiety issues, fear of having to deal with the guy that places higher than you but is clearly a worse player, fear of not knowing why you lost or are losing to someone doing the most popular build they saw x pro gamer do, fear of constantly losing to the flavor of the month build, not accepting that you actually aren't anywhere near decent or good at the game, there are a a lot of reasons I've seen and have myself.
I believe a queue system that is unranked however still considers match making would really help people ease into things. Games like League of Legends do this and I know people that are afraid of ranked play but still play that game in unranked every single day for hours and hours.
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This is excellent. Great application of knowledge.
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One thing about the adrenaline that bothers me ALOT is my hands and feet getting ridiculously cold. I know its a bodily instinct to the rush, but will it ever go away if you can control adrenaline? I've been researching on ways to keep those parts of my body warm during/after games, but i'm still stumped. I really hope that whenever I can get my adrenaline under control, that it will fix itself.
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Whenever school quarter is on, I tell myself I'd play more if only I had the time. Playing ladder is way for me to escape school in that time.
But now it's break and I don't have the drive to play ladder.
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The way I deal with ladder fear is to try to play a strategy, and if i lose its mean my strategy suck not me.
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Great write up. I suffer from Ladder Anxiety a lot. Like many people described, just really have to pull out every last bit of will power to click that "Find Game" button.
I'm doing a lot better now that I convinced myself to practice new builds on ladder instead of AI, and don't take losses that serious anymore.
But know I have a problem where as soon as I win a game, I don't want to play anymore so I can keep the up feeling from the win and not feel the downs from another loss. It seriously cuts into my game count. Trying to force myself to play a certain number of game a day, no matter win or lose. But still, as soon as I won a game, could be my very first game in a day, I just feel like quit on the high note.
Edit: I actually don't feel too discourage about losing now. It's just immediately feel like stopping after I won a game. Anyone else experiencing this as well?
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Just to add some personal experience to what you're describing:
In the late beta and late release, I was playing at a level which is basically the middle/bottom of GM, since it coincided well with my school break. Once school started back up, I felt ok in terms of ego and whatnot just being a master league sort of player, even though a lot of people I used to play against and beat were now a part of GM. However, once I was only able to play maybe a couple hours a week due to school, I was perhaps in the lower end of master league and my ego just couldn't take it.
It just feels so rough playing in a percentile lower than your best. I have struggled to get over it  Never quite have. I really love SC2, and its unfortunate that my ego tends to kill the enjoyment for me, since I know that my IRL friends would be able to see me playing poorly.
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Oh god.
Everytime i play 1v1 my hands are shaking and my heart it's pumping a lot, maybe that's because it's my first RTS game...
But i am raging a lot when i loose a 1v1 match, i suck at 1v1 and i have achieved my 1000 team wins the last season, playing team games it's more relaxing and fun for me but in 1v1, i dont know what to stay calm.
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really good read, thanks
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There are thousands and thousands of threads about ladder anxiety, but this was far and away the best, well worth the read. Tks for writing it. It also apply to other aspects of life. Cool.
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Anyone else feel like this should be featured maybe? :x
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Awesome write up. May I suggest you tackle ladder rage next? 
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I have GAD (generalised anxiety disorder) and i have just learnt to do it instead of worry. change youre mindset, dont think about whats scaring you. etc i can add more in a sec.
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I suggest a spotlight on this.
I'll give another hint which is less "mental" as approach:
Reduce the importance of each game just by cheesing for like 15 games in a row, or try out crazy strats.
Unless you are in GM, where ladder anxiety usually isn't such a problem, you really have nothing to lose.
I sometimes even just leave ladder games cause i don't wanna play a certain MU.
What matters is how you play, not your rank.
This might also help your general understanding of the game without following strict bos. Just make your own!
Also, with practice, you will be able to use the game like a third hand and feel comfortable at what you do.
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thanks for writing! this seems like a pretty common thing to experience
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For the most part im fine laddering, but sometimes, mainly when its slightly cold in my room, my hands feeling feel freezing and shake a little and it makes the mechanical part of playing really hard for me. I understand that its just adrenaline, but its still fucking annoying.
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you sir, deserve every bit of your psych degree. very good read!
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I ladder now, i got demoted from diamond and am in plat as my new race zerg.
This happened like a month ago..
The biggest comfort to me as zerg, is that because it is reactionary, i have to do something right to win. Either aggressively scouting weakness, or defensively having good positioning and decision making regarding drones and units. This makes me feel fulfilled about my skill level. Whereas in toss Or terran i could win with pushes a zerg didnt see coming, as zerg i can win because i saw a push coming.
But, good read, coulda used it last year.
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But how do I even get myself to press that Find Match button? I haven't played since Season 1 and I only played like 40 games back then too T.T I want to play...I just fear that button, and pretty much everything you mentioned.
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On December 22 2011 04:44 Fawkes wrote:
But how do I even get myself to press that Find Match button? I haven't played since Season 1 and I only played like 40 games back then too T.T I want to play...I just fear that button, and pretty much everything you mentioned.
I would suggest finding a practice partner your level. So both of you have qually good chance to win, and can talk about it afterwards. It less pressure that way. Once you played more 1v1 games, it will help let you to start league games. Take it slow. Even just 1 game a day.
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I wish this was a blog so I could rate it 5/5.
Good read!
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On December 22 2011 04:44 Fawkes wrote:
But how do I even get myself to press that Find Match button? I haven't played since Season 1 and I only played like 40 games back then too T.T I want to play...I just fear that button, and pretty much everything you mentioned.
you just do it, just like anything else in life
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I never really thought about laddering like this but I like it. I have not played in much since season 2 and I want to start playing again but part of me doesn't want to do the work haha. Not sure if it is fear or laziness though. Like my dad always said "That boy has a lot of quit in him". Sigh
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On December 22 2011 04:53 All.In wrote:
I never really thought about laddering like this but I like it. I have not played in much since season 2 and I want to start playing again but part of me doesn't want to do the work haha. Not sure if it is fear or laziness though. Like my dad always said "That boy has a lot of quit in him". Sigh
You should probably seek some kind of help about it too.
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Some good scientific information here. Well written. However....
WHY in the hell are people STILL posting threads about this?! For the life of me I will *never* understand why anyone would have 'anxiety' while playing a video game if there is litterally NO consequences of failing at it and virtually no reward for winning. You mentioned something about 'if we dont know the consequences, we make them up'. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. I am pretty sure that everyone knows they will lose ladder points and move down in rank if they lose; we know the consequence.
If I win a ladder game, I get some points, congrats to me! If I win 10 more in a row, I get more points! But, no one is going to bend over and give me a check for 10k and sign me to a team. That is one thing everyone needs to get out of their minds right now: success on ladder, especially for casual players, will not financially or physically benefit you in any way.
Everyone likes to win. I dont know a single person that thinks losing is more fun than winning at ANYTHING. However, there is no reason for this added layer of 'stress' because of a game. Honestly, if you are an average player and you are not contracted to a team or you are not in a tournament, no one is going to care if you win or lose. No one is going to hurt you for losing, it wont cost you money for losing, you will LOSE nothing but a virtual number that has no meaning at all.
Am i in the minority for thinking this way? Sure I love winning, and I dont particularly like losing, but it doesnt stress me! It does not cause mental anxiety for me! Why should it? Give me one reason why it would be *normal* for me to feel anxiety playing a video game under the circumstances that I previously mentioned. In fact, I have a couple friends that bought the game and have barely played it at all! They tell me "i'm not good...ill just lose..." and this is their reason for not playing. Even if they have nothing TO lose and virtually nothing to gain, they still wont play it reguardless if they are interested in it or not (obv they were because they bought it).
If i had a nickel for every ladder fear thread i would be rich
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Very well done you have helped me quite a bit :D
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On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up! There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view?
Thanks!
CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis.
A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person.
However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder).
But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome.
TL;DR: CBT is pretty good! 
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On December 22 2011 04:53 NerZhuL wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 04:44 Fawkes wrote:
But how do I even get myself to press that Find Match button? I haven't played since Season 1 and I only played like 40 games back then too T.T I want to play...I just fear that button, and pretty much everything you mentioned. you just do it, just like anything else in life
That's not helpful advice at all. If people can "just do it", they wouldn't be here to ask advice on it.
To some it might seem rediculous, how hard is it to just move the mouse over the button, and press the left click?
But when your mind doesn't want to do it, it comes up with all sort of justifications, such as: it's too late tonight, I'm play tomorrow, or I'm little tired right now and won't be able to perform my best, or may I should go watch that day9 I missed on archieve, or maybe go see if there's any interesting posts on TL, anything that would trigger the "I just don't feel like playing right now" thought. It is that conflicting feeling that I want to play but at the same time I don't want to play.
There have been many useful advices such as don't play when you "feel" like it, make it a schedule. Start slow, even just one game a night.
I've seen too many people who don't understand the ladder aniexty just come to these threads and go: "pfff, just dot it, play to have fun, why the fear? or Just don't play if you can't handle it...derp derp..."
This is obviously a well established phenomenon that many people experience. Let's give helpful advices instead of dismissive ones.
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I laddered in season 1 to low/mid masters. Then I started getting matched more frequently with players who were streaming their games and the thought of being watched live by hundreds of people really screwed with me. To make it worse, immediately following the end of a game I would often get harassed by my opponent's audience with messages about how much I suck. I haven't laddered since, though I've been thinking for months about getting back into it.
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Huzzah, now I too know psychology and am nearly done with my degree!
Jking, nice write up and it's awesome to have it be interesting (related to starcraft). Thanks!
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Great writeup!
I've had my innitial ladder anxiety but when season 4 started I just thought: Who cares if I get demoted to bronze, I'm just going to play a lot of games and become better!
Today I've been promoted to gold and I know that if I keep playing, keep trying to improve, I can make high plat/low diamond!
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On December 22 2011 04:10 Hurricane Sponge wrote:
I noticed a fair amount of emphasis on pointing out that there are many people who placed high, then stopped playing for fear of getting demoted. These people play their one placement match a season (usually during the Ladder Lock) and will be able to float their league rank for eternity (~ 30 games to recalculate a player's league will mean that at 1 game per season, they will be demoted in roughly 2016).
If Blizzard's goal was to get more players active on the ladder, they could turn this rather sizable user base into active players by having their MMR's (and thus, their league placements) decay while inactive. There would certainly be a percentage who would stop playing altogether if this happened, but more likely, their desire to preserve their league status would compel a larger portion back into consistent ladder action.
if your blizzard dont you want thousands of inactive accounts that dont use up server time with matches?
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If you have "ladder fear" just say to yourself "I am mentally ill for being like this and I need to understand that nothing is at stake here. I am no longer going to be afrade to play this game, and I will not get mad when I lose."
Just say that to yourself, I promise the uncurable disease will be cured! It worked for me it can work for you too! I am going to write a success story of how i got cured, and then sell it. From all of these threads popping up I can see this is actually a real issue. I'll make a lot of money lol
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Great OP, I found this very helpful.
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On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up! There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks! CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good!
Thanks for you response. While I agree that CBT can in some aspects be viewed as similar to the Psychodymanic Theory I don't think that they can generally be viewed as conveying the same message in a lot of arguments. Regarding the cognitive-behavioral therapy being the most acknowledged method right now in psychology I strongly oppose this statement; I feel like the psychodynamic paradigm (if you want to call it that) is still at least as viable as the CBT-paradigm. In particular object to the statement that it's more effective in medicine in the psychosomatic field; especially since CBT isn't used without medicine and psychodynamics isn't used only with medicine.
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Don't have ladder anxiety anymore... just forcing myself to play on loosing streaks did the trick. Although i'm really frustrated all the time. I'll try that ego thing, that's something i've not really thought about yet. Usually just logically thinking about the game and stuff calms me and makes me be rational.
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If you REALLY still have ladder fear after reading this, then perhaps the only real solution is unilateral amygdala removal
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On December 22 2011 05:06 ishyishy wrote:Some good scientific information here. Well written. However.... WHY in the hell are people STILL posting threads about this?! For the life of me I will *never* understand why anyone would have 'anxiety' while playing a video game if there is litterally NO consequences of failing at it and virtually no reward for winning. You mentioned something about 'if we dont know the consequences, we make them up'. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. I am pretty sure that everyone knows they will lose ladder points and move down in rank if they lose; we know the consequence. If I win a ladder game, I get some points, congrats to me! If I win 10 more in a row, I get more points! But, no one is going to bend over and give me a check for 10k and sign me to a team. That is one thing everyone needs to get out of their minds right now: success on ladder, especially for casual players, will not financially or physically benefit you in any way. Everyone likes to win. I dont know a single person that thinks losing is more fun than winning at ANYTHING. However, there is no reason for this added layer of 'stress' because of a game. Honestly, if you are an average player and you are not contracted to a team or you are not in a tournament, no one is going to care if you win or lose. No one is going to hurt you for losing, it wont cost you money for losing, you will LOSE nothing but a virtual number that has no meaning at all. Am i in the minority for thinking this way? Sure I love winning, and I dont particularly like losing, but it doesnt stress me! It does not cause mental anxiety for me! Why should it? Give me one reason why it would be *normal* for me to feel anxiety playing a video game under the circumstances that I previously mentioned. In fact, I have a couple friends that bought the game and have barely played it at all! They tell me "i'm not good...ill just lose..." and this is their reason for not playing. Even if they have nothing TO lose and virtually nothing to gain, they still wont play it reguardless if they are interested in it or not (obv they were because they bought it). If i had a nickel for every ladder fear thread i would be rich
Was just waiting for one of this post to come up.
For people who don't experience the anxiety, it is very difficult to understand. Your reaoning here is all very sound and logical. However many anxieties are illogical in their nature. I'm not as insightful as the OP, but I can try to describ.
Obvoiuse winning the game is enjoyable, and lossing is not. But some people experience these win/losses more profoundly than others, some would descrip a rush of high after wining a game, hearts punding and everything, very satisfying. And experience a low after lossing a game that leaves you feeling like shit. It's very similar to the gambler's rush. Some feel it, some don't, and won't get it.
For those who experience it, some get the highs more than the low, and some get the lows more than the highs. Some doesn't get too low after lossing but a huge high/good feeling when they win, so they keep playing to chase that high (again, the gamler's rush). Some don't get too much good feeling when they win, but really experience the low when they looses and is just not looking forward to experiencing more of this shitty feeling. At that point the game seize to be fun, but more of a chore. Like "I want to be good at SC so I can enjoy the winning, but I'm really not looking forward to loossing another game. But if I don't play, I can't get better." So it's like "I want to play, but I dont' want to loose" which ultimately results in not playing since we all know loosing is unavoidable.
Good thing is this condition graduately goes away once you play more and play. It's always that initial hump that is the hardest that we all need to help people to get over, and not be dismissive.
I remember playing in a local 8-ball pool league when I was in university. First a few times playing total strangers, I was a nevous reck. Can't even hold the que straight. But since it's a league I go with friends, when your game is up, your game is up. So i was kinda forced to play through the nervous games. But after like the first half of the season, I graduately got over it, and finally felt completely normal to play strangers. I believe the same would apply here.
I hope this helps people who don't experience ladder anxiety to understand this phenomenon a little better. It is a real thing. A lot of peopel are affected by it, myself included. Let help everyone get over that initial hump and get more active players online!
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Just wanted to say awesome post, thanks for taking the time to write it. It was insightful.
The cure to ladder anxiety is actually Clonazepam. :p
Naw, i get it RX, social anxiety flt.
I think im going to try some 1v1 again...
PS: To some people who dont understand, rationality has nothing on anxiety, so if you dont get it then dont comment and be happy.
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I used to dread playing 1v1 ladder, nowadays not anymore. What helped me was picking a safe build for each matchup I made up from watching pro player builds and using the parts I thought were interesting.
By doing that ladder becomes a means to improve that build, loses are even better than wins because it exposes a weakness in your play, that you can fix.
Next step is using your base build to work out different transitions and game plans, see what a certain transition works against and it fails against.
By doing this it feels like you are building something, I'm having a lot more fun on the ladder, I honestly haven't felt anxious in a long time and my level has risen by a lot.
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I find your points about overestimating your own ability really true. Earlier in SC2, I was in plat, but in my mind, I was definite master material... so I stopped playing when I lost in platinum because I got so disappointed and mad at myself for not being as good as I was supposed to be.
Not playing for a period actually helped me, because I could rationalize my skill. I could state that sure, I'm actually good at the game, but I haven't played in ages, so of course I'm going to suck. Eventually, that translated into me realizing that I'm actually plat, maybe even high gold. This changed my experience of the game a lot. I accept my losses better, and I feel way happier when I win.
I'm rank 4 platinum at the moment, but I still don't consider myself to be at diamond level, and I'm even quite proud of my current placement.
Another yber important thing not mentioned:
* GET GOOD AT SAFE STANDARD BUILDS. PERFECT THEM.
I'm amazed how much better I feel now that I ALWAYS go 14 gas 14 pool. Previously I went hatch first in every matchup and every match, and I was extremely stressed since cheese and even standard early aggression either killed me outright, or made me stress my brains out trying to defend it. Now that I go a safe standard opening which is identical in all situations, I can stay completely calm in the early game and learn to react to everything. 14/14 can hold EVERYTHING if played properly and the economic loss compared to hatch first is miniscule unless you're high master, no need to be greedy when you're not even diamond.
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Could the design of the SC2 ladder itself be exacerbating the issue? I honestly don't remember hearing about this in previous games yet threads relating to it pop up all the time now on TL.
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On December 22 2011 05:48 Bane_ wrote:
Could the design of the SC2 ladder itself be exacerbating the issue? I honestly don't remember hearing about this in previous games yet threads relating to it pop up all the time now on TL.
It happens in all competitive games. The reason why it's not such a big issue in many other games is that either:
1. It's team play, you can blame everyone else. Which is why people who fear ladder in SC2 usually play team ladder instead.
2. The more skillbased and competitive it is, the more harshly you punish yourself. If you lose at dice, who cares? It was just luck, it says nothing about you or your skill. If you lose in SC2 though, you KNOW that either the opponent is just better than you, or you played bad. That's tough.
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On December 22 2011 05:30 Frumsan wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up! There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks! CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good! Thanks for you response. While I agree that CBT can in some aspects be viewed as similar to the Psychodymanic Theory I don't think that they can generally be viewed as conveying the same message in a lot of arguments. Regarding the cognitive-behavioral therapy being the most acknowledged method right now in psychology I strongly oppose this statement; I feel like the psychodynamic paradigm (if you want to call it that) is still at least as viable as the CBT-paradigm. In particular object to the statement that it's more effective in medicine in the psychosomatic field; especially since CBT isn't used without medicine and psychodynamics isn't used only with medicine.
Nice write up! Best I've seen by far in regards to ladder anxiety.
Some parts like "accepting adrenaline" (and singer-schachter issues with replication) are a bit too much for me but I will just think of it as being aware of the sympathetic arousal and there are techniques that can help deal with that as well for anyone motivated enough. Anyway I liked it.
And I also like CBT so the main difference is that there are plenty of randomized controlled trial studies for the effectiveness (with or without medication) for CBT especially regarding depression but also in many other areas. The evidence for its effectiveness is very good and the way the studies are made makes it possible to directly compare it to for example medication. CBT isn't used with medication but of course it can be just like PDT.
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Im a soon-to-be psychologist too, specializing in behavioral psychology.
I approve this post!
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Great read really like it ty
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On December 22 2011 04:26 Maggost wrote:
Oh god.
Everytime i play 1v1 my hands are shaking and my heart it's pumping a lot, maybe that's because it's my first RTS game...
But i am raging a lot when i loose a 1v1 match, i suck at 1v1 and i have achieved my 1000 team wins the last season, playing team games it's more relaxing and fun for me but in 1v1, i dont know what to stay calm.
Some questions:
- What happens if you play a match against a noob / someone below your own level? Is that more relaxing?
- Is it more relaxing if you use someone elses account?
- If you use a "for fun" strategy (where you are basically doomed to lose), is that still stressful?
Here are some simple tips:
* Your hands don't shake nearly as much as you think during adrenaline. You take in a lot more information with adrenaline in your system, and you notice more details - meaning your hands may seem to be shaking more than they do.
* Adrenaline gives you "tunnel vision". This means you notice the things you focus on (like your hands). Once the game starts, you will probably find your focus being sucked into the game to the point where you almost forget you have a body.
Take some time to prepare and get used to the feeling. Predict the sensations before they happen:
1) Tell yourself before you start playing that OK - now, my heart is going to start pumping hard and my hands are going to feel like they're shaking, but that's normal.
2) After you press "Find game", realize that once the countdown begins, you will feel a jolt of excitement, and your heart is going to be pumping even faster.
3) As you get more excited, experiment moving your mouse around in circles and "figure eights" and study how (if at all) the precision of your movement is affected by more adrenaline.
This could be a good start, just study how adrenaline affects you.
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great read! was very interesting information to read about.
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I used to be afraid to play on the ladder, and I was also afraid to play team games because I did not want to be blamed for the loss -- here are a few things I did to get over it.
1. I started practicing builds and mechanics using YABOT and the multitask trainer -- I think a large part of ladder fear is not about the winning or losing, but rather those times in a game when you feel "lost" as to what you should be doing. Being able to do builds without thinking and being able to do what you want with your army make the game much less stressful, win or lose.
2. Focus on something besides wins, losses, ranks and leagues. Following Day9's advice, I started focusing on one thing in each game -- first it was spending larva for a week, then making overlords to never get supply blocked for a week, then injecting with queens for about a month, then scouting with ovies and so on. I still do this. Right now I am focused on not allowing an opponent to expand without me knowing it. If you systematically improve one thing at a time, you WILL improve and begin winning more games. By making the goal something that will help you win in the long run, you avoid getting wrapped up in the stress of each individual game. If you lose, at least you can say, "Well, at least I spread my creep." And even if you fail at your objective, you can say, "Well, next game I'm going to spread my creep."
3. Always be good mannered, and ignore bm. I don't know why, but it helps me to chat at the beginning of every game. I like to ask people who their favorite players are, did they see mlg, etc. When it's another person like me on the other end of the internet, it makes it feel less like a high stakes duel, and more like what it is...two nerds playing a game. If someone talks shit, I block them, or just say lol like they were joking (maybe they were). I know I used to get depressed by being abused by bm, but if you just laugh, it often takes the bm players off guard. Always gg when you lose -- it is a way of showing that your opponent may have defeated you (cheesed you even) but it doesn't affect your peace of mind.
4. FINALLY -- My breakthrough came one night several months ago when I was back in Silver. Before this night, I was playing, at most, 3-4 games a week. I was near the top of my bracket, and I didn't want to lose my place. On this night, I got REALLY drunk at a bar. When I got home I logged in and played about 30 games. I played some terrrrrrrrrrible games and lost several in a row, but I realized that I was having fun losing. After about five games, my hands started to take over and I started executing better; I started to win. The next day when I looked at my match history, I realized that I had done better wasted than I usually did sober. The secret ingredient was NOT booze. The secret ingredient was two things: playing more games, and not focusing on the result. Since then I play a lot more and I don't mind losing. I know that if I keep doing what I'm doing I'll get better.
TL;DR -- Practice using YABOT and Multitask trainer; focus on one mechanic at a time, rather than winning; be good mannered; get drunk and play just to see how it feels not to care about results, then try to hold onto the feeling of not caring (don't become an alcoholic).
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Great read, well written. Thank you.
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Really great thread! I especially liked the part about the Current Skill Level vs Future Skill Leve and how overestimating ones skill will/could lead to less enjoyable ladder sessions. It really struck home with me, since I always considered myself as part of the high plat/low diamond region, even though I was just recently placed into platinum. I used to go with a rather abusive "14g14p - first zerglings to banelings asap" zvz, and roach/ling allin every zvp with ffe. In combination with almost no zvt matchups on ladder (for some reason) my MMR was on steroids for a while (it simply is much easier to win with an early allin on these levels, it's just the way it is). Going to more traditional (yet new for me)/macro builds though, my winrate plummeted and I found myself matched against high golds again - sometimes even losing to them! Needless to say (?) I was a wreck and raged against the injustice of the world. But then I started thinking like "maybe I was never good to begin with??" and I have now downgraded my goal of getting into diamond to getting to a comfortable somewhat high plat rank - trying to perfect my play enough to never lose against gold players. It feels... great!
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People generally say that they get frustrated when they lose and stop playing. It makes the complete effect on me when I'm on a lose streak I want to play more and more because i know losing is part of learning and when I'm on a win streak it is harder to play for me since I don't want to ruin the streak. I think to beat ladder anxiety you just should learn stop caring about ladder since it is meaningless. You can even like enter a game and just surrender to remind yourself that points you get in ladder have no meaning. I'm a high master zerg and when I'm bored i just enter with random and lose 10 games with four gates and 2 raxes because since I'm not a progamer why should i care? that should be the mindset i think don't be hard on yourselves people .
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I wouldn't necessarily say that having high expectations is bad for you - it can also be motivational. as kind of a low master player that often gets demoted while screwing around and offracing (see - i could also describe me as between diamond and master but my ego doesn't let me :-)) those expectations always help me to put those extra effort in - even if it doesnt work I can tell me that I did my best.
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On December 22 2011 07:06 Uliking wrote:People generally say that they get frustrated when they lose and stop playing. It makes the complete effect on me when I'm on a lose streak I want to play more and more because i know losing is part of learning and when I'm on a win streak it is harder to play for me since I don't want to ruin the streak. I think to beat ladder anxiety you just should learn stop caring about ladder since it is meaningless. You can even like enter a game and just surrender to remind yourself that points you get in ladder have no meaning. I'm a high master zerg and when I'm bored i just enter with random and lose 10 games with four gates and 2 raxes because since I'm not a progamer why should i care? that should be the mindset i think don't be hard on yourselves people .
This is definitely a good way of thinking about it, I'm the same. This season (today) I haven't lost a single game since placement and I'm thus top 8 plat. Because of this, I don't really dare to play more games today since I know I might very well lose my streak and this happy feeling I have coming back to laddering and having success might go away. So streaking can indeed be bad.
I don't think one should enter games and surrender immediately, but I definitely encourage people to do crazy builds/play random just to force themselves not to care. On my second account, I played my worst offrace for all my placement matches using dumb builds such as CC first and macro style marine only terran, and I still won my games which is hilarious, but it felt really good to go into laddering with the intention of trying something fun instead of just winning.
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Thanks for a great post!
I'm guilty of most of the points made in this post, such as overestimating my skill and accepting my "appraisals of doom". I will definitely get back SC2 as soon as I finish Uncharted 3 and go though the shit-ton of games I recently bought on Steam xD.
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On December 22 2011 05:30 Frumsan wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up! There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks! CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good! Thanks for you response. While I agree that CBT can in some aspects be viewed as similar to the Psychodymanic Theory I don't think that they can generally be viewed as conveying the same message in a lot of arguments. Regarding the cognitive-behavioral therapy being the most acknowledged method right now in psychology I strongly oppose this statement; I feel like the psychodynamic paradigm (if you want to call it that) is still at least as viable as the CBT-paradigm. In particular object to the statement that it's more effective in medicine in the psychosomatic field; especially since CBT isn't used without medicine and psychodynamics isn't used only with medicine.
I think the psychodynamic approach is underrated in modern psychology too. I've studied Kohutian Self-psychology on my own sparetime, due to a personal interest in psychodynamics.
One "problem" with most psychodynamic approaches to, say, ladder anxiety, is that it usually requires an experienced and skilled therapist, and lots of dialogue. CBT is mostly done by the patient itself, and is well suited to at-home exercises.
The efficiency of CBT is measured in terms of successful outcomes per patient, and has done well here - also without medicine. This kind of success rate has proven more difficult to measure for psychodynamic approaches.
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Thanks for all the nice feedback from fellow psych students and SC2 players! And some very good examples, like straycats testimonial for instance:
On December 22 2011 06:53 straycat wrote:Really great thread! I especially liked the part about the Current Skill Level vs Future Skill Leve and how overestimating ones skill will/could lead to less enjoyable ladder sessions. It really struck home with me, since I always considered myself as part of the high plat/low diamond region, even though I was just recently placed into platinum. I used to go with a rather abusive "14g14p - first zerglings to banelings asap" zvz, and roach/ling allin every zvp with ffe. In combination with almost no zvt matchups on ladder (for some reason) my MMR was on steroids for a while (it simply is much easier to win with an early allin on these levels, it's just the way it is). Going to more traditional (yet new for me)/macro builds though, my winrate plummeted and I found myself matched against high golds again - sometimes even losing to them! Needless to say (?) I was a wreck and raged against the injustice of the world. But then I started thinking like "maybe I was never good to begin with??" and I have now downgraded my goal of getting into diamond to getting to a comfortable somewhat high plat rank - trying to perfect my play enough to never lose against gold players. It feels... great!
Also, from Mr. Black's post:
On December 22 2011 06:23 Mr. Black wrote:[..]
3. Always be good mannered, and ignore bm. I don't know why, but it helps me to chat at the beginning of every game. I like to ask people who their favorite players are, did they see mlg, etc.[..]
This is smart. Establishing a relaxed interpersonal context and using good manners will really help reduce the "social tension" part, when being face to face with someone who is also pumped full of adrenaline. I'll try to find a way to add that to my OP.
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Ladder anxiety = Losing something you deem to be valuable(Ladder points and possibly be demoted) so most people go "If I don't ladder I can't lose points" which leads to a downward spiral because the less you play, the lower your skill will be and that will lead to more losses.
Best advice = Login and instantly play a game, don't even think about it
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Great job, though the Schachter and Singer experiment was a bit crack since they did it poorly. Anyways, i should have done something like this with my background because this was an amazing read. I especially like you using the appraisal theory since a lot of people don't know about it and how it really does affect most of SC2. One critique would be for you to talk about general management of losses when it comes to loss streaks since that really does hurt the ego. Finally it was very smart of you to talk about how and why SC2 tends to be so full on and why its less casual for most than LoL or CS:S/1.6. GJ dude
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I don't particularly have this problem but that was still a very interesting read, thank you
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I have ladder fear and this article basically summed up what I was experiencing (The adrenaline + expectations)
I still have ladder fear though
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Wow, this is actually a pretty good read. I started off reading thinking, seriously? But as I read on I realized this is a damn good article. Great job!
If I haven't played in a while sometimes I find myself getting a little bit of anxiety about playing 1vs1. This explains a lot.
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This is a really great read and excellent analysis of the reasoning behind ladder anxiety.
I personally had it fairly bad during the first season after I hit my skill plateau and began losing more. Eventually I rationalized it and got it under control.
No more adrenaline spikes at the start of games and it helps immensely, your not so exhausted after games and pretty much eliminates that flash of rage that happens once you realize you've lost.
I very much endorse the advice in this thread, just rationalize it in your mind and realize that whether you win or lose it's just a game. With the right mindset a nice long day of laddering can be quite a relaxing experience.
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On December 22 2011 04:19 kenkou wrote:
One thing about the adrenaline that bothers me ALOT is my hands and feet getting ridiculously cold. I know its a bodily instinct to the rush, but will it ever go away if you can control adrenaline? I've been researching on ways to keep those parts of my body warm during/after games, but i'm still stumped. I really hope that whenever I can get my adrenaline under control, that it will fix itself.
This happens to me so often. In Dota it would happen to me after a good game but there I got so used to it that it didn't bother me. Now in SC2...after a good game (win or loss, doesn't matter), I get jittery as hell and my hands feel like they've been in the freezer for the last 30 minutes it's ridiculous. Same symptoms I got in Dota, but I can't handle it as easily in this game.
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While I was playing Dota1 some years back I often had fun; whether losses bothered me or whether wins felt good depended on the situation. After 3 years of that I got bored with the whole genre and moved to FPS, mainly MW2 which I played (a lot) for a year and a half. The reason why I stopped playing MW2 was performance anxiety. Let me explain: at first my kill/death ratio in a game was 1:3 then as I got better it went up to 1:2, 1:1, 2:1 and then I reached a level where basically in every game I had at least a 3:1 kill/death ratio, often better, and was very often first in my team. At that time I noticed that I don't feel the same "I'm just gonna play the game and hopefully shoot some people" and when I do shoot someone I stopped feeling the "yay!" feeling. What I started feeling was pressure. I was aware of my skill and it was my personal expectations of my own play that started giving me that pressure. "I can play great, therefore I must play great." If I played well and my team still lost, I was ok with it "you win some you lose some" but if I didn't play well, for example if my k/d ratio was "only" 2:1 (god forbid less than that) then winning didn't evoke any emotional reaction and losing evoked self-hate for not stepping up to my game and letting my brothers in arms down. When I realized that I have lots of problems pressing the find match button due to me expecting of myself to always play to the best of my ability and that also winning felt completely "normal" while losing was devastating and self-critical, I stopped playing the game.
This is where I completely accidentally noticed SC2. I watched pro matches and day9 dailies for two months before I bought the game. I just had to get it even though I already knew deep down what was coming. At first it was fun, interesting and difficult. I haven't picked Zerg, the Swarm picked me. After playing Dota1 for so long I noticed that you could ask a Dota player 3 questions about the game by which you could determine his whole personality without really having to know him. It's similar with races in SC2. When I look back now I see that there was a major subconsious decision that led me towards Zerg: it's the most free-form race in the game. While with Toss or Terran you have fixed crisp timings you must oblige to, with Zerg you're free to mold it anyway you want (mainly due to it's reactionary nature). Now why did that appeal to me? Because I never liked being confined in any way. I'm a 26 year old kid, a dreamer, after all you could wiki my name and understand what I'm saying. In every sports there comes a time where you must give yourself in to dry practice if you want to improve. Doing the same thing over and over again. That time has come for me to do and it's not that I don't want to, it's that I can't, my mind won't let me. In various games I understand what I should be doing, but my fingers aren't fast enough, my multitasking is non-existent, I overfocus. Throughout my whole life whenever I was interested in something I focused a 100% on it and the world could collapse around me and I wouldn't notice. I always thought that it was a good thing but it's very bad for SC2. I'm not 15, my personality is formed and it's damn hard to change it now. After the initial brainless, automatic clicking through game openings, when I reach 40+ supply my mind starts overfocusing on everything: battles, production, positioning, scouting, I get so focused on any of them that it takes me a while to unfocus and move to another thing on the list and it's a lot of time wasted and the inevitable losses happen even though I know what I should be doing and that is such a devastating feeling. That is what bugs me the most. I know what I should do it's just that it takes a lot of time to refocus from such a deep focus and I'm not just gonna learn the game by heart since there is no fun in that. Before every "find match" button pressing I tell myself "you know what you should do, don't focus to deep, relax and try to remember stuff" and that creates enough pressure as it is, let alone after I lose. When I lose I don't even have to watch the replay, I know exactly why I lost and the inability to put that knowledge to use due to my lifelong practice of focusing instead of multitasking leaves me completely disenhearted. I have decided to stop playing SC2 althogether. I will still watch and enjoy the pros do it, just like I watch and enjoy football games without playing it.
I deliberatly left this for the end, OP will find this data useful being a psych major: I'm a very anxious person (with irritable bowel syndrome as a physical manifestation of my anxiety) with delayed phase sleep disorder (extreme night owl) and severe chronic procrastinator with serious problems regarding finding motivation to do anything. I'm an idealist, also a "realistic" pessimist (it's a side-effect of using lots of statistics and probability for determining outcome), some would say I'm depressed even though I just make informed observations and it doesn't take much to see that the global picture of it all just doesn't look good (weltschmerz). I'm also an atheist and Mensa member. I've never been to a shrink and would never take any brain medication. CBT sounds interesting but I will probably never get myself into actually going, besides, where would I get the money for those expensive visits to the shrink.
Peace out, hombres!
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you gave a large discussion of appraisals to describe what is basically a Jonah Complex, doubting one's own abilities and competency, or fear of failure.
Ladder anxiety=fear of failure
The reason that the Jonah complex shows up so acutely on the star craft ladder, imo, has to do with the immediacy and potency of the reinforcement following a win or loss . For whatever reason, the fact that its public record-ladder points/position-etc, players really fear losing a starcraft game, and they get re enforced very strongly from a loss not to let that happen again ie. they get very upset, rage if you will. These same people probably are extremely satisfied and happy when they win because the reinforcement is just as strong in the positive direction.
the players with the least ladder fear are the ones who aren't really effected by the reinforcement after a win or loss. Or I guess a better way to put it in the form of advice; if you want to get rid of ladder fear, then one should try and not tie their internal gauge of their skill level and competency in SC2 to the results of their ladder games.
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Are people really replying to this with "great science" and "really good to see a scientific approach" to this?
This isn't science. Common sense perhaps and certainly observationally biased, but science?
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I read the OP, and I agree on many (if not all) points. I skimmed a few of the responses, and I must concur that this was a nicely constructed article with good, practical nuggets of wisdom for a wide range of players. I was putting a decent amount of time into sc2 early on, but after I got more involved with school and other side projects I kind of let myself get rusty. Now, every time I go back in to ladder 1 or 2 games I do feel like its very hard for me to compete at my old level with such limited time invested in actually playing. Ever since BW when I was around 12, up until wc3:TFT I took these games pretty seriously (especially when I got to my peak competition wise in wc3:TFT). Anyways, for me it is difficult to play an RTS game casually, so I have basically been inactive for several months now. If I got back into it I would want to at least hold my own in masters league games, but this is because of an ingrained expectation I have upon myself that I have a really competitive nature.
One poster mentioned an idea about decaying MMR, and I think that would be a nice idea. A few days ago I went 0-1 and retained my masters league position from before this season, and I got crushed in that game. I actually had a nice timing window for about 2-3 minutes to attack but my push came way too late as he had already fortified his expansion. Anyways, all in all, I think it might be helpful for people like me who want to ladder again - but definitely need to get our skills totally reassessed because of so much inactivity. I know that I could just play it out until I get demoted or get the hang of that level of play again, but somehow this isn't very attractive for me to do. It feels like I have a huge mountain to climb, and I rather just start from the bottom up again, lol.
Anyways, there was another article that brought up some good points related to Psychology and sc2 play posted here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=142131. I also chimed in with a response in that thread as well. I figure if you guys found this article useful, you may want to also check out this older article too.
For now I will probably just continue sneaking a game every now and then, and remaining a fan of esports. I could always spring into more games in the future, but right now it seems unlikely with D3 on the horizon and my prime RTS era having come and gone (at least as far as I can tell.)
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On December 22 2011 13:15 Synwave wrote:
Are people really replying to this with "great science" and "really good to see a scientific approach" to this?
This isn't science. Common sense perhaps and certainly observationally biased, but science?
You fail hardcore since you're not giving any arguments.
Is this science? I don't know, you don't seem to think so, but without supplying even a single argument, how is anyone supposed to answer your post?
Psychology is most definitely science, no doubt about that, so you probably have some better arguments. Write them down.
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On December 22 2011 04:22 Gyro_SC2 wrote:
The way I deal with ladder fear is to try to play a strategy, and if i lose its mean my strategy suck not me.
i lol'ed.
very nice read =]
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Hey man this was an absolutely fantastic read, I really enjoyed this, I always loved psychology and really getting down to the core of the ladder anxiety / fear problems, and realizing that to really improve at the fastest speed you have to watch you're loss replays, thanks for this insight, I get upset a lot of the time and blame balance, but the real thing is I have no one to blame but myself. Thanks!! Happy Holidays~
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On December 22 2011 08:55 docvoc wrote:
Great job, though the Schachter and Singer experiment was a bit crack since they did it poorly. Anyways, i should have done something like this with my background because this was an amazing read. I especially like you using the appraisal theory since a lot of people don't know about it and how it really does affect most of SC2. One critique would be for you to talk about general management of losses when it comes to loss streaks since that really does hurt the ego. Finally it was very smart of you to talk about how and why SC2 tends to be so full on and why its less casual for most than LoL or CS:S/1.6. GJ dude
Thanks! I don't recall all the critiques against Schachter-Singer, but these affect-attribution experiments have been repeated with much success in the last 50 years, and S-S seems to be included among supporting / pioneering evidence in current affect research.
I completely agree that losing and how that changes people is very interesting for gaming, but I guess I would have to go outside the "ladder anxiety"-scope.
Can I ask what your background is? I don't doubt your credentials, but you piqued my curiosity!
On December 22 2011 13:07 stokes17 wrote:
you gave a large discussion of appraisals to describe what is basically a Jonah Complex, doubting one's own abilities and competency, or fear of failure.
Ladder anxiety=fear of failure
I agree completely that focus on mastery / redefining what failure is, to reduce your fear of failure, should be part of a "ladder anxiety" therapy. I tried to cover that through "current skill". For me, it seems to be people's too high expectations of "current skill" that result in a too strict perception of what failure is. (one loss = failure)
But there are also, in my opinion, other appraisal factors at work here that don't need "fear of failure":
1) fear of adrenaline
2) misappraising the effect of an SC2-loss on their ego / social status
3) misappraising the social situation of 1v1 as an aggression/threat situation (ref Mr. Black's post about good manners having a calming effect).
On December 22 2011 13:15 Synwave wrote:
Are people really replying to this with "great science" and "really good to see a scientific approach" to this?
This isn't science. Common sense perhaps and certainly observationally biased, but science?
I agree. This is an advice article based on my knowledge of SC2/gaming and cognitive/behavioral therapy. Although the methods and theories behind it have a fairly solid scientific basis, the OP article would not hold up as a formal psychology article, it lacks citations and empirical evidence on how this applies to SC2. It's a bit more like a "self-help" article, so take it for what it is.
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Good read! I'll link this to a friend of mine who refuses to 1v1 ladder because of anxiety.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina439 Posts
Finally not a bullshit anxiety thread. Well done sir, this thread will hopefully stop this kind of threads because it really explains it all. Really good write up.
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i really like it! It's great to read explanations on what's happening in our bodies when we play in hopes of controlling it or at least understanding it!
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Learn from White-Ra and your ladder experience will be so much better!!!
OT: It looks solid for those in need.
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On December 22 2011 04:23 FADCoUltra wrote:
Great write up. I suffer from Ladder Anxiety a lot. Like many people described, just really have to pull out every last bit of will power to click that "Find Game" button.
I'm doing a lot better now that I convinced myself to practice new builds on ladder instead of AI, and don't take losses that serious anymore.
But know I have a problem where as soon as I win a game, I don't want to play anymore so I can keep the up feeling from the win and not feel the downs from another loss. It seriously cuts into my game count. Trying to force myself to play a certain number of game a day, no matter win or lose. But still, as soon as I won a game, could be my very first game in a day, I just feel like quit on the high note.
Edit: I actually don't feel too discourage about losing now. It's just immediately feel like stopping after I won a game. Anyone else experiencing this as well?
I got the same, if I lose I must keep playing. Cuz no matter what, I have to end the day with a win! When I finally have that win, I'm satisfied and stop.
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I know you didn't ask me, but S-S emotion theory has some problems. Of course everything is criticized but there are some pretty big questions raised for this theory in particular. Might be newer evidence but the shaky evidence was also something I heard from my professor. "Reducing fear by knowing about adrenaline" (aren't there more factors there?) wasn't replicated but few studies like this has been done.
That said I think it's a smart move to consider feedback from arousal in the experience of emotion, and that there is a relationship between bodily changes, appraisal and emotion is clear. Also being informed about what bodily changes to expect and how to deal with it could very well be effective anyway and it's quite different from a list of side effects in an experimental setting.
http://www-alt.uni-greifswald.de/~psycho/allge2/Reisenzein/Publications/Reisenzein1983_Schachter_Theory.pdf
Also I like the book "Understanding Emotions".
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Hi partysnatcher. I want to ask one thing. Does any kind of or certain type of music reduce ladder anxiety? Im certainly 1 of tons ppl who suffer ladder anxiety.
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On December 22 2011 22:52 Sablar wrote:I know you didn't ask me, but S-S emotion theory has some problems. Of course everything is criticized but there are some pretty big questions raised for this theory in particular. Might be newer evidence but the shaky evidence was also something I heard from my professor. "Reducing fear by knowing about adrenaline" (aren't there more factors there?) wasn't replicated but few studies like this has been done. That said I think it's a smart move to consider feedback from arousal in the experience of emotion, and that there is a relationship between bodily changes, appraisal and emotion is clear. Also being informed about what bodily changes to expect and how to deal with it could very well be effective anyway and it's quite different from a list of side effects in an experimental setting. http://www-alt.uni-greifswald.de/~psycho/allge2/Reisenzein/Publications/Reisenzein1983_Schachter_Theory.pdfAlso I like the book "Understanding Emotions".
Thanks for the input and reading material!
Schachter-Singers theory wasn't so relevant for my example, just their experiment (your Reisenzein-article seems to approve the causality I implied, but disapprove of other aspects). I based myself on modern affect research, where there are many other examples of how re-attribution change our feelings, like Clore & Schwarz' (1983) rainy day experiment. I picked S-S because of their use of epinephrine/adrenaline, which applies more to SC2.
This aside, my impression is that adrenaline in general is a bit difficult for someone sitting in a chair in front of a PC, to make sense of, and I think the sensation of just "waiting" fixed in front of a screen with adrenaline pumping, for many, is scary in itself. So I think whether we "think we fear" (S-S, Lazarus etc) or whether adrenaline is just a bit too intense on it's own, nevertheless it is helpful to understand where adrenaline is coming from and what it is doing, and to promote habituation rather than sensitization to adrenaline.
Some notes on Reisenzeins 1983 article vs modern affect theory;
Reisenzein here has issues with S-S' labeling concept and says there is no evidence that a calm body will make fear impossible. Modern affect theory agrees and disagrees. The "labeling" of S-S would be called "attribution", so that is still considered valid. As for calm body inhibiting fear, LeDoux has suggested a dual route interactive system where both excitation and inhibition of emotion can be elicited from several levels (PNS, conditioning and cognition). In other words, the fear-quelching phenomenon in S-S theory could apply for certain scenarios, but the demand of body+cognition is not valid.
Thanks for a good post!
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wow sc2 has become serious business with all these hardcore threads.
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On December 23 2011 00:57 Raana wrote:
Hi partysnatcher. I want to ask one thing. Does any kind of or certain type of music reduce ladder anxiety? Im certainly 1 of tons ppl who suffer ladder anxiety.
Different music does different stuff to different people. Energetic music, soothing music, humorous music and very familiar, "safe" music could all have beneficial effects. Experiment. Try different music out and feel if the different styles affect you, rate their soothing affect on your anxiety from 1-10.
Experiments in general are good just by being experiments, they let you study your own problem "from the outside" and will give you a feeling of control.
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Yea, this write up was fabulous. I always see the damn "ladder anxiety hurting E-sports" thread and usually just see people present problems, this post finally is proposing some easy and effective anxiety reducing techniques and describes why we feel the pressure we do, again, great write up.
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I really liked that write up. It exactly depicts what I used to get when I played ladder. I've never got sweaty palms but instead I've got really cold hands, even when it's relatively warm in the area around me.
I've got good at dealing with the adrenaline aspect. I used to get quick pumped up for my first couple games then completely burn out after that but now I can play at the same level of energy for each game. I also normally work out before I play in the morning so that deals with a lot of the adrenaline stuff. I play way better after I exercise; my mind feels clearer and my hands feel better for control, which when I'm not fully awake I play way slower and less precise.
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Things work way different for me. I fear the ladder because when I start hitting up on the ladder, the fear of losing pumps me up so much that I can't stop playing till I start losing focus. (10~20 games later...) Any idea what is this?
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On December 22 2011 04:19 kenkou wrote:
One thing about the adrenaline that bothers me ALOT is my hands and feet getting ridiculously cold. I know its a bodily instinct to the rush, but will it ever go away if you can control adrenaline? I've been researching on ways to keep those parts of my body warm during/after games, but i'm still stumped. I really hope that whenever I can get my adrenaline under control, that it will fix itself.
Do a few pushups or squeeze something real hard. You feel cold because less blood gets to the extremeties, so counter it by getting it flowing again.
ETA; Make sure you breath properly. Sounds silly but you'd be surprised at how shallow you're breath can get when you're anxious.
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It's unfortunate that people can't sit down and play a computer game without getting anxious. It's almost as if their entire perspectives or grounding in reality have been severed. Life can be difficult and stressful- managing relationships, pressure to do well in school, job related stress, financial stress for many. It blows my mind that someone can sit down and play a video game and experience anger, frustration, fear, anxiety, and other emotions that really don't have any place in a frivolous hobby.
I can't tell you to stop being childish, but if you really want to face your fear- purposely lose the next 10 or 15 games. Just fire em up and instantly quit. Or (and i've done this because I get a kick out my opponents' reactions), play out a game for 30 minutes. Let yourself become invested in the outcome. And, if you are about to win, leave the game.
The ladder system is meaningless and is only there to find you evenly matched opponents and make the game more FUN! Frankly, if you only enjoy starcraft when you are winning or suffer from very negative emotions when you lose, find another hobby.
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On December 23 2011 02:13 HaruRH wrote:
Things work way different for me. I fear the ladder because when I start hitting up on the ladder, the fear of losing pumps me up so much that I can't stop playing till I start losing focus. (10~20 games later...) Any idea what is this?
Misplaced emotions? Video game addiction? Honestly, it's not good.
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I don't have ladder fear on SC2 but on SCBW when I was playing iCCup I would always start almost every account with scores like 40-0/50-0 and after a certain point I just lost the will to play cause I was afraid of getting the first loss. I would not play for a couple of days for that reason even though I felt I needed to practice and understood it was totally stupid and superficial. Usually after the second loss I started to loosen up and didn't care about playing and losing many more, but the part between getting into a game while I had no losses and the moment I finally got my second loss was really troublesome, cause it made me feel proud but at the same time I was scared to lose what made me so proud. That's the only occasion where I wouldn't want to ladder but I remember clearly how much it held me back and how big of a problem it was at the time when I was still an unexperienced player. I can imagine new players winning a tournament game or a ladder game against a very good player and being afraid on going ahead cause they are afraid they might lose to the next noob again, nullifying the good result they got.
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I dont feel any fear/stress playing ladder, In online cups a little in Bo1 phases. I got bad habit of playing a lot of games when Im in looser streak so sometime I can get 0-10.
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Great write-up. Luckily I no longer have this problem, but I know it is a big problem for many.
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an educated and insightful writeup on ladder anxiety. i usually don't read many threads about this but this one was really interesting. and protoss ass tattoo made me laugh. excellent.
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Demoting myself to one league lower, relieved me a lot of anxiety. Suddenly the worst that could happen, happened, and on purpose. I could then focus on playing without really fearing demotion, as i knew i wouldn't get demoted again for sure.
Your second paragraph explainst exactly what i've been saying countless times. SC2 is kind of brutal. Focus on 1v1's, public ranking that gives you your worth in the game. "if you play bad you suck, and everyone will be able to go to your profile and see how much you suck".
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Awesome write-up! My ladder fear is slowing going down thanks to this. The biggest help for me is the mantra: "My current skill is plat, but my future skill is Master's and that's OK".
Thanks again! This really was very helpful.
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Most of my casual friends stop playing as they do no want to loss and they just dun want to improve. Instead of fear, they totally just gave up.
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On December 23 2011 08:46 eraft wrote:
Most of my casual friends stop playing as they do no want to loss and they just dun want to improve. Instead of fear, they totally just gave up.
Most of us SG seems to give up on StarCraft 2 due to ladder anxiety :/ My friends gave up on SC2 due to the same problem. He rather run and play other games than feel this fear.
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A while back I made this graphic which I feel might explain why people sometimes don't like to ladder in this game, maybe it still rings true here:
+ Show Spoiler +
For some context, I guess I'm discouraged somewhat by the treadmill feeling of the ladder; I'm already in masters, even if I improve I won't make it to GM, if I lose I feel bad/discouraged, if I win it's just "meh, look how many mistakes the opponent made" and its hardly satisfying. If I'm in the top 2% of CS players and I join a server, I'm probably gonna be topping the scoreboard and doing pretty damn well for my team. If I'm in the top 2% of starcraft players and I join a ladder game I still have a 50% chance to lose the same way a silver player might. Maybe this is a different topic than "ladder fear", however, I'm wondering if others feel the same.
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Good read.
I don't entirely agree with you when you equate ladder fear/anxiety to an unexpected adrenaline response. I feel some anxiety before a match, but my heart doesn't start pounding and my palms don't get sweaty until I actually start to do engagements and have to micro and make decisions. I'm not sure if you are completely equating them or not, they are definitely pretty distinct, though related reactions.
The adrenaline response for me is a response to my opponent's aggression or decisions, whereas any anxiety I feel is before a game and is probably due to, as you explain, unrealistic negative appraisals.
Definitely going to reread this before I start playing later tonight.
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That was a damn good read, thank you.
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I can vouch for this OP, his teachings allowed me to get over my ladder anxiety today. I did my placement match and I got promoted to masters.
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Nice thanks for the writeup.
Hopefully this helps people with ladder fear. I don´t play much anymore because of LOL reallife but I can see this helping tons of people
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Wow. This write-up is pretty impressive. You hit the nail right on the head, my friend. I've known more than a few people who say that they don't like to play on the ladder. Why?
"Losing is frustrating."
I think WhiteRa said it best:
"When I starting play, I very disappointing and very sad after my lose. If you want to make one goal to win, you must lose. You can't win all games. We are people. You make mistake. You are not computer. And if you understand your mistake when you lose, you can just make analysis game and continue to play and try to fix it, and it's not problem. More, more GG. More skill."
Source
This kind of thinking has taught me to take every loss in stride. I don't fear defeat any longer. Whether I win or lose, I will continue to grow as a player.
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the main problem with sc2 ( or more like all 1on1 games ) is that by definition 100% of the time one player has to lose.
no one likes losing, thats why the most played game of all time is wow, becouse 90% of it is co-op vs ai where the ai takes the dumb part of the loser. in games as dota you can at least blame your "Noobteamates" for the lose while in quake or sc you know its all becouse you suck
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On December 23 2011 14:31 eccokk wrote:the main problem with sc2 ( or more like all 1on1 games ) is that by definition 100% of the time one player has to lose. no one likes losing, thats why the most played game of all time is wow, becouse 90% of it is co-op vs ai where the ai takes the dumb part of the loser. in games as dota you can at least blame your "Noobteamates" for the lose while in quake or sc you know its all becouse you suck
Agreed. And like you say, WoW developers have been extremely adept at making people think they have accomplished something.
Another aspect is that the typical ladder gamer almost only plays sets of BO1s, which creates this absurd situation where after one single win, you may think that you are better than your opponent (and assume that your opponent thinks the same when he wins over you). While in reality, very few people would acknowledge a BO1 win in a real tournament situation as anything but a coinflip.
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I dont understand ladder anxiety, but I can relate to one's ego being tied up in how one performs.
Good read, applicable knowledge. Thanks for the write up
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People who don't understand ladder anxiety vastly overestimate the rational brain's control over the body. A person can decide conciously that they're fine with losing and they just have to play more to improve, but that won't stop their scumbag subconciouse turning their gut into a chemical toilet.
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I study psychology myself (less than you have ) and i still got a lot out of this.
Absolutely great write up!
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This is an amazing article. Thanks for sharing your professional knowledge on this with us.
One thing I like to do to start a game session is setting up an alarm (1h will do) and hit that "Find match" button right away and play through the hour. Just don't think about anxiety or anything just play your games through the hour. It yielded amazing results for me.
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I always said that ladder fear was silly, and that most people who suffer from it should talk to a psychiatrist. This post might be a solution for some.
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Thankyou mate, you have helped me a lot with this article. <3
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I'm definitely getting an ass zerg tattoo :D
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Great post, a very interesting read.
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This is such an awesome post. These underlying strategies and concepts can be applied to so many other situations. Also, your writing style is perfect for taking notes from, thank you for that. I plan on musing over these ideas for quite a while.
Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to write this. =D (BME student here)
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I would like to add a note that worked for me, at least partially. Use the custom games for 1v1 obs and just join every match that comes up. If you're lower level, there is a chance you could play masters or a higher skill. More than likely, you'd get stomped. This helps the feeling of a loss being a bad thing because it makes it feel like something that will happen no matter what, allowing you to focus on the strategy and what you are actually doing in the game.
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Great post - a very informative read. Lately I've been fostering a growing interest in Positive Psych by watching Tal Ben-Shahar's lectures from Harvard and reading about CBT so I found this to be a wonderfully engrossing post, especially since I've been trying to apply what I've been learning to Starcraft (as well as other facets of my life).
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this post is awesome. Highly informative and accurate.
Thank you.
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you have hit the nail on the head with this post.
great read.
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this is a great read. i have had anxiety all my life and playing SC2 definitely has a certain anxiety level associated with it. some of the tips in this article will definitely be helpful while playing on the ladder
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Thank you, OP.. very well informed article, and I will be considering all your points as frequently as possible, not only while laddering, but in all aspects of life.
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This is a really interesting read. I agree with some other people who said it should be spotlighted.
When I played a lot, I definitely experienced some of the things OP described. Not the adrenaline so much, but more the difficulty separating current skill and future skill, and separating my self skill appraisal from overall ego value. I still forced myself to play through it, and it did get better. Actually practicing and improving my skill helped a lot, since I got positive feedback as I advanced in leagues. Once I plateaued at high-ish diamond, I still could play ladder games without too much anxiety since I knew that my "current skill" was higher than it had been in the past as the result of my own efforts.
However, when I was home for summer break I couldn't play due to a slow Internet connection. Since then, I've been having troubles with anxiety because all that positive feedback has become negative; my "current skill" is lower than it has been, and thus I lose to players and strategies that I "should beat." Hopefully some of the things in the OP here will help me get back into it.
@OP: are you finishing undergrad, or a phd or master's? This is more in depth into the therapy/coping side of things than I would expect undergrad psych classes to go, but I can't imagine someone finishing a grad degree would have enough time to put together something so detailed and long.
One last thing: I love your suggestion that players who can ignore balance issues will be happier than those who think about them, blame their losses on them, or complain about them. Case in point: the happiest person in Starcraft, Day[9].
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Great read. Hopefully, this will help those who have a hard time pressing that "find match" button.
Personally. I don't ladder a whole lot because I have the opposite problem: "ladder addiction". I purposefully play no more than 3-5 games a day/every other day because I'm afraid I won't stop. Starcraft is too much like Pringles.
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On December 28 2011 03:50 awwnuts07 wrote:
Great read. Hopefully, this will help those who have a hard time pressing that "find match" button.
Personally. I don't ladder a whole lot because I have the opposite problem: "ladder addiction". I purposefully play no more than 3-5 games a day/every other day because I'm afraid I won't stop. Starcraft is too much like Pringles.
I guess that is good if you don't want to improve too much.
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I read your really nice and very good post. I have this ladder anxiety
I played Season 1 and 2, then i switched to co-op. I was silver in both seasons, i won around 20 of 30 matches ( i lost all zvz if i remember correctly). I think, my biggest anxiety is that I get stronger opponent later, even if I play better from match to match. I have no ladder or online experience in a other rts game.
After I read your post, i feel much better. I probably play ladder again
Sorry for my bad english, i know my english isn`t good/okay.
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Very nice write-up! I've linked it from the TL wiki article  Dealing with anxiety (might not yet be an approved edit).
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Fantastic read, thanks TC =D
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I have some super intense ladder anxiety >.< Like I could be in the mood to play like 30 games in a row but mentally ill talk myself out of it thinking things like "shit everyone is better then me so ill lose like 20 of those 30 games". Like I even get it after hitting like a 12 game win streak like i did last season. Like I had won 12 in a row an was mentally riding high but out of nowhere instantly the "fuck everyone is better then me" thought game in an the anxiety returned >.<. When I try to play through the anxiety my play suffers quite severely where I lose to a worker rush >.< Ill take the advice from this article to heart but as I usually run on emotion it will be rather hard to remove it from my game >.<
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Awesome read, very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to write it up!
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On December 22 2011 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:
Anyone else feel like this should be featured maybe? :x
I second the motion.
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Fantastic read. Deserves a feature on the front page if you ask me.
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Damn im getting ladder anxiety from reading the first post:-\
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I used to get ladder anxiety really bad to the point where i couldn't play more than 2-3 games, especially if i won all of them. I would get really shaky. But, for me it was worse in sc1, because i would join a game and not really know how good someone was. (i never played on iccup, i didn't know about it till i started following sc2 and really getting into the scene)
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i used to have ladder anxiety as well, until i changed my mindset. i started taking ladder less serious playing random and even dropping down to plat league, but boy was it a lot more fun then grinding ladder as toss, always close to masters but never quite there. nowadays i play terr and toss for fun and got to the same ranking with both races as when i was playing so serious LOL.
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This was an excellent read. Thank you for posting this.
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As a fellow psych major, I find this an extremely interesting read. However, I would also like to add onto this and raise up some new areas of discussion on this topic.
First of all, from a CBT perspective, you're spot-on. MMA (link) talked about the method to his madness in his post GSL win interview. He said multiple times that the key was to stay calm and focused; freaking out just threw off his focus. He also emphasized the importance of a solid support system (in his case, in the form of Team SlayerS.)
Your article is very good for the casual or independent gamer, but I would just like to throw another point of perspective out there. As all psychology majors know, there's also a strong cross-cultural difference in motivation. Many of the interviews that I've read of pro-starcraft players always emphasize the need to achieve more and to appease their audience. It was just really interesting to see this difference even within your post. For example, the thread starter posted:
+ Show Spoiler +On December 22 2011 03:47 partysnatcher wrote:
Remove unrealistic appraisals
As mentioned above, if the outcome of playing a ladder game is uncertain, appraisals can create emotions from a hypothetical, extrapolated situation and create an "appraisal of doom" that will keep generating fear in your brain. The cure here is quite simple - take some time to think realistically about what could happen after a loss.
"What's the worst that could happen?". Will I be demoted? Will my opponent mock me when I am most vulnerable? Etc. This is the time to be cold and realistic, and use statistics and facts.
A lot of people often wonder how Starcraft 2 Korean players achieve a level of ability often believe to be impossible. The questions that they ask themselves not only revolve around themselves, but around other people. For example, a serious starcraft player on a professional team in Korea may think "How disappointed will ______ be in me? fans/family/friends/team." Thus, I feel like Korean gamers set standards for themselves that are almost-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness-ly high. Unlike many other individuals in different cultures, a lot of East Asians are more open to criticism and are definitely critical of themselves. I know I'm also overgeneralizing, but many Korean students think in the same fashion when studying. In addition, their definition of "high-stress levels" can also differ.
I totally agree with partysnatcher posted; you definitely learn a lot more from when you lose than when you win. I just thought this might be a good side-insight from a different perspective
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So grateful for this. I have chronic ladder anxiety - which sucks, since I also love the game and love playing it.
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Russian Federation6 Posts
Man, i even registered @ TL.net to say that u did so awesome work. this is useful even for masters/gml surely. gj
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Wow that post was really insightful. I had no idea that ladder anxiety was that complicated and that it had to do with chemicals and psychology in the human brain. Very good read, you are very explaining.
However it seems weird that some people get ladder anxiety, it seems like such a simple thing to fix. I had it a long time ago for season 2 and I fixed it by just searching for games. I forced myself to click Find Match and I didn't even think about what the consequences would be if I lost. So yeah, I am sure this post is pretty much true as I have done what you told me to do in order to fix it before I read this thread, and it worked.
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This is an amazing analysis of ladder anxiety, well informed and well written. Now that I think about it, I experience anxiety most frequently after I haven't played for a while, or when I need to do a 1v1 placement. I think the idea of attaching self-worth to leagues and ranks really does go a long way in explaining the stresses of the game. The best thing I do to ameliorate my anxiety is to view each game as a learning opportunity. If the focus is self-improvement, rather than winning or promotions, then it becomes much easier to accept losses, and to even view them in a slightly positive light.
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On January 03 2012 03:27 dearyuna wrote:As a fellow psych major, I find this an extremely interesting read. However, I would also like to add onto this and raise up some new areas of discussion on this topic. First of all, from a CBT perspective, you're spot-on. MMA ( link) talked about the method to his madness in his post GSL win interview. He said multiple times that the key was to stay calm and focused; freaking out just threw off his focus. He also emphasized the importance of a solid support system (in his case, in the form of Team SlayerS.) Your article is very good for the casual or independent gamer, but I would just like to throw another point of perspective out there. As all psychology majors know, there's also a strong cross-cultural difference in motivation. Many of the interviews that I've read of pro-starcraft players always emphasize the need to achieve more and to appease their audience. It was just really interesting to see this difference even within your post. For example, the thread starter posted: + Show Spoiler +On December 22 2011 03:47 partysnatcher wrote:
Remove unrealistic appraisals
As mentioned above, if the outcome of playing a ladder game is uncertain, appraisals can create emotions from a hypothetical, extrapolated situation and create an "appraisal of doom" that will keep generating fear in your brain. The cure here is quite simple - take some time to think realistically about what could happen after a loss.
"What's the worst that could happen?". Will I be demoted? Will my opponent mock me when I am most vulnerable? Etc. This is the time to be cold and realistic, and use statistics and facts.
A lot of people often wonder how Starcraft 2 Korean players achieve a level of ability often believe to be impossible. The questions that they ask themselves not only revolve around themselves, but around other people. For example, a serious starcraft player on a professional team in Korea may think "How disappointed will ______ be in me? fans/family/friends/team." Thus, I feel like Korean gamers set standards for themselves that are almost-to-the-point-of-ridiculousness-ly high. Unlike many other individuals in different cultures, a lot of East Asians are more open to criticism and are definitely critical of themselves. I know I'm also overgeneralizing, but many Korean students think in the same fashion when studying. In addition, their definition of "high-stress levels" can also differ. I totally agree with partysnatcher posted; you definitely learn a lot more from when you lose than when you win. I just thought this might be a good side-insight from a different perspective
Absolutely. Like you say, "collectivistic" cultures usually approach performance and motivation quite differently. As someone who has been taught by a Chinese teacher, I know that many Chinese are not that fond of praise and good emotions as motivation. People from similar types of training regimes, using motivation like you describe, could be well used to performing with adrenaline! And also, the situations causing anxiety could be quite different. Is ladder anxiety even an issue in Korea?
It does seem korean players like, for instance, Liquid`Hero, can have performance issues "when it counts". Hero generally had a higher heart rate than his opponents when measured live, and often does worse in tournaments than on ladder. If that phenomenon is caused by fear, what causes that fear?
Thanks for a very interesting second angle on the phenomenon!
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i probably fit into this category - i played a lot and i played zerg so that means losing to stupid allins felt like some random noob punches you in the face. I sometimes felt so bad for losing even tho i was ranked decent (high diamond before masters was introduced).
After playing only zerg i started playing random and allin with protoss and terran a lot - and i won so many games against way better opponents that i felt all the time i played zerg was just wasted time. And at some i point i just felt exhausted - playing 1 hour sc2 was like running a marathon. So i reduced my playtime from like 6-7h a day to 1h till i stopped playing 1v1s.
So i started playing more casually 2v2 / 3v3 / 4v4 etc. but after some time that was just boring and i tried to get into 1v1s again but i felt that i got a lot worse and could only achieve diamond (right after masters was introduced) so i stopped playing sc2 and didnt even load up the game anymore i didnt play in the last ~5? months now.
/E i also never really had fun playing sc2 it was kinda a competitve game and i only played to win and to improve. I took it quite serious and playing sc2 was rather stressful and not enjoyable.
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First of all, I want to say the OP has made a fantastic post, and I agree with all the theory behind it. However, I'd like to offer a more action-based solution (which still follows the cognitive-behavioral theories presented by the OP).
I have found that the best way (for me) to overcome debilitating ladder fear is by not just redefining (in one's head) what it means to lose and what one's expectations should be, but to actually act out - strictly - those new definitions. Let me be more concrete. I was able to overcome ladder fear by deciding that I would not try to win games. Rather, I would try to improve some feature of my game every time I played (such as micro, always making workers, general macro, speed, ability to play aggressively, etc. - really it can be anything you want to improve).
Let's take the example of always making workers. In game, if I noticed that I failed to meet my goal of making workers frequently enough, then I lost. Therefore, I would abruptly GG out of the game. According to my rule, I had lost - it had nothing to do with whether or not I was able to defeat my opponent.
After doing this over and over, not only will your skill skyrocket, but you will find that laddering is much less scary. After all, all this time, you've been quitting games according to your own criteria, independent of the other player. What's to fear, really?
Everyone has to find their own solution to ladder anxiety. I suggest others to try this out.
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I really enjoyed reading this. I think it will actually help me loads in the coming weeks of ladder :D
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Good read, thanks for taking time to write this
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On January 04 2012 03:43 newron wrote:
First of all, I want to say the OP has made a fantastic post, and I agree with all the theory behind it. However, I'd like to offer a more action-based solution (which still follows the cognitive-behavioral theories presented by the OP).
I have found that the best way (for me) to overcome debilitating ladder fear is by not just redefining (in one's head) what it means to lose and what one's expectations should be, but to actually act out - strictly - those new definitions. Let me be more concrete. I was able to overcome ladder fear by deciding that I would not try to win games. Rather, I would try to improve some feature of my game every time I played (such as micro, always making workers, general macro, speed, ability to play aggressively, etc. - really it can be anything you want to improve).
Let's take the example of always making workers. In game, if I noticed that I failed to meet my goal of making workers frequently enough, then I lost. Therefore, I would abruptly GG out of the game. According to my rule, I had lost - it had nothing to do with whether or not I was able to defeat my opponent.
After doing this over and over, not only will your skill skyrocket, but you will find that laddering is much less scary. After all, all this time, you've been quitting games according to your own criteria, independent of the other player. What's to fear, really?
Everyone has to find their own solution to ladder anxiety. I suggest others to try this out.
I kind of do something similar to get over ladder anxiety, but not as extreme as quitting outright. I just make the focus of each game something like "I am going to do this build against x flawlessly" or "I will use all of my chrono no matter what". If I fail my goal, i still play it out but look for places to be sharper in the replay right afterwards.
Really though, I've found that it kind of breaks down like this:
You will have ladder fear if you focus on winning at all costs.
You will have much less ladder fear if you accept your true current skill (as OP states) make each game focused on a) improving specifics and b) learning what will work and won't work.
Also, if I have the game loaded, I tell myself "stop being a pussy" and click find game as fast as I can so I can't psyche my self out lol.
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Great write up hit the nail on the head many times. I've always wished people brought a more casual mindset to ladder games. That is to say not be scared of playing or losing. Being competitive is good and should be continued. The thing that bothers me most is people who think the league means anything. So they don't play even though they know they don't deserve their league. The leagues are just a percentage of current player skill so its all relative and really means nothing...except tm maybe. Old diamond is now high plat to GM. So ya play more ladder people don't try to win just have fun and try to improve
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Wow, that is really good.
I had ladder fears before, now i don't. Just don't think about winning and don't think of becoming a pro right a way. It takes to time to be skillful in something. No one isn't born pro, from the start. People will wake up and realize that ladder ranks and losses are just mistakes (dumb decision making, cheese or something they cant multitask to beat).
Thanks for giving an insight on the ladder anxiety. Great write up, brah.
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great read, never knew it was adrenaline, thought i was just really anxious or excited or something.
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Very interesting article, thank you! By the way, the opposite kind of problem exists too, if I finish a game the "find game button" is clicked before i notice what I'm doing. Maybe that's a way to go too, just click that damn button. I recently got demoted to Plat, and this time I guess I am staying for good, but that has made laddering actually more fun. Maybe People with ladder fear should just start playing goofy until they get demoted, and then work their way back up
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This was so good! You touched so many things! I haven't played a whole lot and those few times that I have the "find match" has been so hard to press!
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Enjoyed reading this many things I had no information about will be fun to see if its gonna improve peoples performences after this.
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On December 22 2011 04:23 FADCoUltra wrote:
Great write up. I suffer from Ladder Anxiety a lot. Like many people described, just really have to pull out every last bit of will power to click that "Find Game" button.
I'm doing a lot better now that I convinced myself to practice new builds on ladder instead of AI, and don't take losses that serious anymore.
But know I have a problem where as soon as I win a game, I don't want to play anymore so I can keep the up feeling from the win and not feel the downs from another loss. It seriously cuts into my game count. Trying to force myself to play a certain number of game a day, no matter win or lose. But still, as soon as I won a game, could be my very first game in a day, I just feel like quit on the high note.
Edit: I actually don't feel too discourage about losing now. It's just immediately feel like stopping after I won a game. Anyone else experiencing this as well?
I used to do the exact same thing. I don't care much about losing but after winning like 3 or more games in a row. I look at my match history and I'm 'satisfied' and feeling discouraged from starting a new game. I'm getting a little bit better but I still have kind of the same problem. It started for me in WC3.
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I think that I have the opposite of ladder anxiety, I'm always willing to play ladder. But after I have played I get ladder hangover and I'm sad about the points that I may have lost and I think I'm stupid for playing bad.
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Wow best article about the "ladder anxiety" I've read so far. I loved the part about adrenaline and social tension.
In my case, I play only about 20 ladder games per season because of this ladder anxiety but I can play hundreds of games against gm friends who are better than me. I also feel no fear but good adrenaline sensation when I play online tournaments or LAN and meet famous players so I had a very hard time to identify what the fuck was this ladder anxiety.
I'll definitly try the manner thing.
Thank you.
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Great article.
I suffered with this when first starting out my laddering. I came to sc2 cold, after never playing an rts game properly before so trying to play the ladder was very daunting. I dealt with it by playing team games first(usually 4v4's) and laddering up there, now i realise team laddering as a solo with 3 randoms doesn't have quite the same status as your 1v1 league but for me it was a nice way to start and introduce myself to the scene. The thing about a 4v4 is you can get away with not contributing all that much probably right up to plat as long as you have some good players on your team. I've only ever really reached high end plat levels in 4v4s but around this time, and around the start of plat i found i needed to learn to hold my own. You find people who have reached this level normally have a bit about them so generally all 4 of your opponents will put up a fight meaning you have to as well or your team suffers.
Now this leads me onto how this helped me get over my ladder 1v1 fear, holding my own in high plat 4v4 made me realise that i can actually do this and play this game, just about
This gave me the confidence to go and properly play 1v1's. Before this I would play a handful a week at best but as time went on i gradually played more and wanted to play more. Over time i went from 'please don't let me die right now, and oh dear that army looks scary' to 'ok how to i beat that, that army is big so what do i counter it with'
I found the learning curve was something else that helped me get playing, i found it fun to try and work out how to beat certain things and how to macro better than my opponent and how to get 1 up on them and get a lead.
Over christmas i've played the heaviest i've ever played on it and i'm on the boarder of being promoted to plat in my 1v1. To most this won't seem to much of a big feat but to me it's pretty massive. This rush/adrenaline which put me off before is now what's bringing me back.
The amount of time i've sunk into 1v1's now has made me enjoy playing more and i find im not nervous about pressing 'find game' anymore But i'm now starting to look at playing a few tournements, nothing major just free one's that i can dip in and see what the experiance is like just as a way of mixing it up. So it's now a case of trying to over come the anxiety with that but this article pretty much relates to it as well
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Purchasing a second account is the best Investment you can possibly make of you are sufferIng from ladder anxiety.
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Verryyy interesting. Ladder anxiety's probably one of the reasons I stopped playing ladder. Reading this makes me want to go play again. :D
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To me this is the most informative post I've read. Especially since this has been a big deal to me, and probably affects me more than actual strategy does. I will try to keep this in mind.
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Pretty long explanation for something so stupidly simple. Hahahaha.
Alright, let's go ladder.
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I just had a pang of anxiety for reading this thread about removing ladder anxiety.
Great post.
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This tournament seems like a good fit for people w/ lots of anxiety:
Benzocraft
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On February 05 2012 18:41 Psilo wrote:This tournament seems like a good fit for people w/ lots of anxiety: Benzocraft
hilarious. :D
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On January 05 2012 00:45 -Trippin- wrote:
Purchasing a second account is the best Investment you can possibly make of you are sufferIng from ladder anxiety.
THIS.
its what truly broke my ladder fear. I used to be half and half. playing to win and even losing didnt really have any effect. But winning made me want to stop playing and become satisfied. I reached Masters, and thats when ladder fear struck. I bought a second account, and i easily got into masters. Thats when i realized, that it didn't matter. No matter what, the system will place me where i belong. And it doesnt matter where i belong as long as i improve. Furthermore, i realized that there was nothing to prove to anyone but myself.
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On December 22 2011 03:47 partysnatcher wrote:
Remove unrealistic appraisals
As mentioned above, if the outcome of playing a ladder game is uncertain, appraisals can create emotions from a hypothetical, extrapolated situation and create an "appraisal of doom" that will keep generating fear in your brain. The cure here is quite simple - take some time to think realistically about what could happen after a loss.
"What's the worst that could happen?". Will I be demoted? Will my opponent mock me when I am most vulnerable? Etc. This is the time to be cold and realistic, and use statistics and facts. Pick "boring" conclusions - do not allow any feelings to affect your reappraisal, but make it solid and real. And keep in mind the fact that an SC2 ladder loss is just numbers in a Blizzard database. It does not represent a tendency. It does not have to rely on skill. Your account is not You, and You can always get a new account.
I found your article interesting for the most part, but then i got to this, which is your thought on realistically assessing situations, yet you conclude with And keep in mind the fact that an SC2 ladder loss is just numbers in a Blizzard database. It does not represent a tendency. It does not have to rely on skill. Your account is not You, and You can always get a new account.
And it's the opposite of the most important piece of advice known to mankind, which is "It's only after we lost everything that we are free to do anything.", you know, the chemical burn, accepting and embracing the pain and all that good stuff.
The account is you, numbers overall always reflect a tendency, which is you suck more or you suck less. Yes it's a tough one to swallow, but it's the foundation, you'll be building everything else on top of that - you skip it, everything gets shaky.
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I have given up long ago trying to improve. I am just not dedicated enough and will stay a Platinum forever, I kinda accepted that. Now I play when I can, if I continue winning for some time I can play for longer periods, but if I just lose 3 games in a row my mindset is completely shattered and I just continue to play terrible. I just lost 6 games in a row, due to unimaginably stupid mistakes, and knowing that I just feel desperate and hopeless. I am just never going to get good at this game.
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INterresting post!
for my self i got the solution to deal with the "anxienty", in the way, that i say ladder doesn´t matter.
I play a couple of tourneys and there i give my very best and defeat also top 25 master players while i am just high diuamond in ladder.
So: Ladder is not an indicator of skill, it´s more an indicator of how much a player want to put into laddergames
PS: sorry for my bad english^^
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That's a really interesting approach.
I'm wondering if having ladder anxiety could be just the consequences for a wider, more general problem ( ego ? self confidence ? ) and SC2 with its ladder system is just making them more noticeable.
In that case isn't it better to deal straight with those bigger problems rather than just making you sc2 experience a little less messy ?
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Gonna read all of this later on, I'm having extreme ladder anxiety to the point where it is totally ridiculous.
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I think part of the phenomena stems from the battle.net mechanics. That sound when you find an opponent followed by the pesky little countdown, I think this sequence induces nervousness. It's like you're being thrown down into a gladiator pit and are gonna fight it out until only one man stands. For me the "nervous" part was, and sometimes is, the time before specifically the first game I play. After that i'll just keep pressing that play button and don't really mind anything about it.
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Great read man! This information is fantastic and can translate to other areas of peoples lives that cause anxiety. Providing a toolset to deal with that anxiety is a great thing.
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THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
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great work, i just realized that being a psych major probably no one can ever lie to you
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Always found the concept of ladder anxiety really interesting, I look forward to reading an in-depth analysis on it. Personally my approach to ladder anxiety has been to advise a set number of games each day as a bare minimum, and to just keep at it. I found that the anxiety diminished a lot after maybe my first 50 1v1s.
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Gotta love half the responses saying "Nice read!" and "Awesome article" yet with no addition to the discussion at all. Guess they didn't even bother to actually read it. Post count ftw!
On the subject at hand, raging whenever you lose a game is part of what you are as a person. You'll learn to deal with it if you put in the time to play and the willingness to improve. Sometimes rage is a manifestation of the inability to accept inferiority, defeat or, like in most cases, the human error.
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Wow this is an amazing write up and i thoroughly enjoyed reading it! thank you! =D
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Excellent Thread and post. and I agree.
ladder should be about fun, learning the game, relaxing.
Yes, its a RTS, its extremely competitive, it requires high precision and lets face it, losing a long drawn out game or losing a game due to a silly error or mishap in scouting can cause stress, but its best to look back on things, look at replays to learn and just relax.
A lot of players seem to suffer this. I know clan mates where they'll practice, and practice, play great during clan practice matches outside of few fundamental errors here and there and then once they hit ladder, they just lose. and I've heard from their own words "I get angry, I make stupid decisions and become irrational because of it, I lose, I get more angry..repeat" It's silly.
Really, the whole concept of BM is just silly to me altogether. It's one thing to be stressed and leave the game without a word, another to just attacking the player, call them insulting things because you dont appreciate their style of play.
It's like playing 1 on1 basketball, losing because he's a good shooter and then calling him a "***ing idiot" "imba" "you dont know how to play the game etc" it's just silly.
I can completly relate to this.
I came back not long ago (2 weeks ago after a 1 year break and started fresh new account and all and realized I was now platinum level after formerly being masters in KR/NA server), I acknowledged my drop off in skill and I took pride in accepting the losses, trying to learn the new build, analyzing, seeing what I did wrong etc. In about 1 week I started winning all my platinum games towards something like a 9 game winning streak. I was on top of the ladder and crushing my division by a lot but I wasnt getting promoted despite being put up against diamonds and beating them constantly. This fumed me but as a result, let my emotions get the best of me and I was losing, a lot silly errors, forgetting key production at x time, screwing up all-in timings and just plain losing. Basically what I had to do was take a few hours off gaming, enjoy sc2 streams and think that promo's mean absolutely nothing and what I should be concerned about is just improving my mechnics, my game play, my game sense and flat out enjoying the game again. This caused me to just break into a massive win streak and the promotion and now spiraling winning the past 18 of 22 games in diamond to get towards that goal of masters. I do not stress. I take my losses in all my practice games and in ladder gracefully and play it for entertainment no matter how much BM, how cheesy the build was that beat me.
One part I do find difficult though..is getting rid of being hard on myself. It doesnt help that I do have the asian culture mindset. I am extremely hard on myself at my losses, because after my loss and even without looking at the replay, I know exactly why I lost, whether it be forgetting about upg'rade suntil its too late, having non-flawless worker production and letting my army being caught out of position. But this very fact motivates me to become better because I know I can improve and propel me to the top.
I find another bad concept on sc2 is the abuse people have over lower ranks
I get masters players have a good knowledge of the game, but the amount of shit talk because they're a tier higher is just...endless and pukingly bad. I know it's impossible really to get rid of bm, but honeslty people should be more respectful, no matter the league, the race, the gameplay because after all we're all just users of sc2.
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Thanks alot for writing this! Had problems with ladder anxiety when i played SC2 before, and I'm currently having some (though not as big) problems with it in LoL. Will read it through again, pretty sure some of the stuff in this post could help me! tyty
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still a great writeup and article
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On December 22 2011 08:21 partysnatcher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 05:30 Frumsan wrote:On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up! There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks! CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good! Thanks for you response. While I agree that CBT can in some aspects be viewed as similar to the Psychodymanic Theory I don't think that they can generally be viewed as conveying the same message in a lot of arguments. Regarding the cognitive-behavioral therapy being the most acknowledged method right now in psychology I strongly oppose this statement; I feel like the psychodynamic paradigm (if you want to call it that) is still at least as viable as the CBT-paradigm. In particular object to the statement that it's more effective in medicine in the psychosomatic field; especially since CBT isn't used without medicine and psychodynamics isn't used only with medicine. I think the psychodynamic approach is underrated in modern psychology too. I've studied Kohutian Self-psychology on my own sparetime, due to a personal interest in psychodynamics. One "problem" with most psychodynamic approaches to, say, ladder anxiety, is that it usually requires an experienced and skilled therapist, and lots of dialogue. CBT is mostly done by the patient itself, and is well suited to at-home exercises. The efficiency of CBT is measured in terms of successful outcomes per patient, and has done well here - also without medicine. This kind of success rate has proven more difficult to measure for psychodynamic approaches.
I'll weigh in as a psychoanalytically trained clinical psychologist. While there are many streams of analytic thought and each of those streams of thought could go in different directions, I think a theme throughout them could be to bring attention to the cause of the anxiety. The OP started to address this, but congruent with a CBT model there is not much attention at expanding why playing a video game could create so much anxiety that people stop playing it.
The answer to "why" can be (and is) different for everyone, but I bet a significant portion of it is related to one's sense of control or mastery in the world. Anxiety in general can often be explained as the attempt to defend one's self from a perceived uncontrollable threat. This threat could be everything from a very abusive parent (a very real threat) to feeling that you picked the "wrong" item to eat for lunch (a very minor threat) to feeling that stepping outside will lead to getting abducted by aliens (a very unlikely threat).
The hope would be that one could be firm enough in them selves (maintain ego strength) to experience a threat, feel the impact of it - both positive and negative, and be able to respond appropriately. If the threat is that your stove is on fire the appropriate response would be to attempt to put the fire out (or run outside if the fire was too big), if the threat is losing points in ladder an appropriate response would be experience the disappointment as a reflection of your skill at a video game not as a reflection of your identity (now, if you are a pro attempting to make a living off SC, then there is a whole different threat).
If one's sense of control in the world is obtained through SC there will always be a high degree of anxiety because that control is always threatened.
As sort of a silly thought experiment, I think if someone came to me as a patient with "ladder anxiety" (maybe a new diagnosis in DSM V?), my thoughts would be to explore why the patient felt so threatened by losing. My guess would be that the patient lacks other ego building activities - such as hobbies, close relationships, places for a safe expression of emotion; likely due to a lack of these things being available to them as a child.
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Very nice read, thank you I was actually looking for something similar to this and glad to have read something like this. Definitely should be lowering my expectations and play my game, thank you
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Very nice read, thank you I was actually looking for something similar to this and glad to have read something like this. Definitely should be lowering my expectations and play my game, thank you
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On April 06 2012 11:36 ProjectiveID wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 08:21 partysnatcher wrote:On December 22 2011 05:30 Frumsan wrote:On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up! There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks! CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good! Thanks for you response. While I agree that CBT can in some aspects be viewed as similar to the Psychodymanic Theory I don't think that they can generally be viewed as conveying the same message in a lot of arguments. Regarding the cognitive-behavioral therapy being the most acknowledged method right now in psychology I strongly oppose this statement; I feel like the psychodynamic paradigm (if you want to call it that) is still at least as viable as the CBT-paradigm. In particular object to the statement that it's more effective in medicine in the psychosomatic field; especially since CBT isn't used without medicine and psychodynamics isn't used only with medicine. I think the psychodynamic approach is underrated in modern psychology too. I've studied Kohutian Self-psychology on my own sparetime, due to a personal interest in psychodynamics. One "problem" with most psychodynamic approaches to, say, ladder anxiety, is that it usually requires an experienced and skilled therapist, and lots of dialogue. CBT is mostly done by the patient itself, and is well suited to at-home exercises. The efficiency of CBT is measured in terms of successful outcomes per patient, and has done well here - also without medicine. This kind of success rate has proven more difficult to measure for psychodynamic approaches. I'll weigh in as a psychoanalytically trained clinical psychologist. While there are many streams of analytic thought and each of those streams of thought could go in different directions, I think a theme throughout them could be to bring attention to the cause of the anxiety. The OP started to address this, but congruent with a CBT model there is not much attention at expanding why playing a video game could create so much anxiety that people stop playing it. The answer to "why" can be (and is) different for everyone, but I bet a significant portion of it is related to one's sense of control or mastery in the world. Anxiety in general can often be explained as the attempt to defend one's self from a perceived uncontrollable threat. This threat could be everything from a very abusive parent (a very real threat) to feeling that you picked the "wrong" item to eat for lunch (a very minor threat) to feeling that stepping outside will lead to getting abducted by aliens (a very unlikely threat). The hope would be that one could be firm enough in them selves (maintain ego strength) to experience a threat, feel the impact of it - both positive and negative, and be able to respond appropriately. If the threat is that your stove is on fire the appropriate response would be to attempt to put the fire out (or run outside if the fire was too big), if the threat is losing points in ladder an appropriate response would be experience the disappointment as a reflection of your skill at a video game not as a reflection of your identity (now, if you are a pro attempting to make a living off SC, then there is a whole different threat). If one's sense of control in the world is obtained through SC there will always be a high degree of anxiety because that control is always threatened. As sort of a silly thought experiment, I think if someone came to me as a patient with "ladder anxiety" (maybe a new diagnosis in DSM V?), my thoughts would be to explore why the patient felt so threatened by losing. My guess would be that the patient lacks other ego building activities - such as hobbies, close relationships, places for a safe expression of emotion; likely due to a lack of these things being available to them as a child.
Nice post. That last line is pretty strong. I kind of had ladder anxiety but I felt like it was to do more with online relationships with my gamer friends. Now I don't have this feeling at all I'm very confident in playing and sharing loses with my friends. My personal solution was to suck it up and realize that I'm actually enjoying myself when I play. And also you won't improve without playing.
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Great Read op!! :D
So much of this applies to me, the weeks/months between playing games, then using a whole day to prepare for just 1 match.
The huge adrenaline rush as I go into the first game with my heart going crazy, I've also noticed how the fear is lessened for me after the first match.
I shall definitely be taking up some of this advice and I'll consider getting a smurf account and just playing for casual fun.
I've bookmarked this article for future reference :D
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"to be stressed out, play once a week, static and repetitive in Diamond?"
oh snap, this sounds just like me lol
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really well written, great read
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I've read it all and I really like what I saw. thanks
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On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore.
If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that.
Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering
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I 100% recommend people get a "smurf" account if they're suffering from social pressures not playing the game. (i.e. the everyone I know is masters so I don't want to play cause I'm only plat) It's a little too bad Blizz decided to make a smurf account $60.
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On April 07 2012 05:35 CursOr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore. If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that. Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering
Lololol :D Diamond is way harder ? It's so easy especially that one of my zerg buddies was shifting back and forward from plat to gold league and now he learned to do some stupid earlier 4 gate build and apparently he is beating diamonds with it like 90% win ratio ( I scout and hold it with 0 problem). When I play NA diamonds its so easy. You can say that only about KR server which I play and I can vouch that the plat league is more difficult that NA diamond.
As for the topic, the best advice is just to start playing rather than waste your time analyzing where it came from. I've read many of those guides back when I had ladder anxiety and it is all bs explanation of something that can only be countered by clicking search button. Or the other solution is to get KR account like me and play there so you get owned so badly that you have to completely revamp your playstyle down to details.
Is it successful ? Well KR server helped me focus on details as well as in less than a week eliminated my desire to rage at lost games because unlike in NA I don't lose to stupid stuff but get outplayed which helps to cope with loses. While I never GG, I appreciate the player that defeated me because they knew how to play.
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great write up, really interesting stuff. I can relate to so much of it.
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Well done buddy ! This is a great article. I recognize myself a lot while reading :D
Thank you
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Even so i play a lot of ladder this was a very interesting read. I Hope to read more analyses from you!
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This seems extremely interesting, and I recognized myself in every point you said (I don't analyze replays, I don't want to ladder, etc).
Great write up.
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People generally say that they get frustrated when they lose and stop playing. It makes the complete effect on me when I'm on a lose streak I want to play more and more because i know losing is part of learning and when I'm on a win streak it is harder to play for me since I don't want to ruin the streak. I think to beat ladder anxiety you just should learn stop caring about ladder since it is meaningless. You can even like enter a game and just surrender to remind yourself that points you get in ladder have no meaning. I'm a high master zerg and when I'm bored i just enter with random and lose 10 games with four gates and 2 raxes because since I'm not a progamer why should i care? that should be the mindset i think don't be hard on yourselves people ;p
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On April 07 2012 05:49 Lokerek wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2012 05:35 CursOr wrote:On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore. If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that. Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering Lololol :D Diamond is way harder ? It's so easy especially that one of my zerg buddies was shifting back and forward from plat to gold league and now he learned to do some stupid earlier 4 gate build and apparently he is beating diamonds with it like 90% win ratio ( I scout and hold it with 0 problem). When I play NA diamonds its so easy. You can say that only about KR server which I play and I can vouch that the plat league is more difficult that NA diamond. As for the topic, the best advice is just to start playing rather than waste your time analyzing where it came from. I've read many of those guides back when I had ladder anxiety and it is all bs explanation of something that can only be countered by clicking search button. Or the other solution is to get KR account like me and play there so you get owned so badly that you have to completely revamp your playstyle down to details. Is it successful ? Well KR server helped me focus on details as well as in less than a week eliminated my desire to rage at lost games because unlike in NA I don't lose to stupid stuff but get outplayed which helps to cope with loses. While I never GG, I appreciate the player that defeated me because they knew how to play.
Nomination for worst post ever?
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On April 08 2012 14:01 danojb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2012 05:49 Lokerek wrote:On April 07 2012 05:35 CursOr wrote:On April 06 2012 09:21 ocGMentalOne wrote:
THIS DOESN'T HELP IF I LOSE 1 MORE GAME I MIGHT GET DEMOTED TO DIAMOND YOU KNOW HOW STRESSED I AM FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU This is because the Ladder is thinning out. All the people who were filling up Bronze and Silver just don't play anymore. If everyone below masters quit, you'd have masters players in Bronze. It's not quite that bad, but it's kind of like that. Diamond is WAY harder than it used to be and Platinum has stuff it never used to, like Protosses that know how to block your nat and macro behind it and Terrans that properly 2 reactor hellion. It's actually cool, except for the fact that it means that less people are laddering Lololol :D Diamond is way harder ? It's so easy especially that one of my zerg buddies was shifting back and forward from plat to gold league and now he learned to do some stupid earlier 4 gate build and apparently he is beating diamonds with it like 90% win ratio ( I scout and hold it with 0 problem). When I play NA diamonds its so easy. You can say that only about KR server which I play and I can vouch that the plat league is more difficult that NA diamond. As for the topic, the best advice is just to start playing rather than waste your time analyzing where it came from. I've read many of those guides back when I had ladder anxiety and it is all bs explanation of something that can only be countered by clicking search button. Or the other solution is to get KR account like me and play there so you get owned so badly that you have to completely revamp your playstyle down to details. Is it successful ? Well KR server helped me focus on details as well as in less than a week eliminated my desire to rage at lost games because unlike in NA I don't lose to stupid stuff but get outplayed which helps to cope with loses. While I never GG, I appreciate the player that defeated me because they knew how to play. Nomination for worst post ever?
Yep, your post should be nominated for the worst post for it brings nothing to the thread.
Anxiety will never go away unless you start playing and that's it. You can write a whole page psychological summary but it won't help you unless you click "start game" and start playing. Even if you don't read it and start playing eventually you will lose anxiety. The whole point of the post is to show that no matter what you read you might "lower" anxiety but you cannot overcome it unless you start playing and stop worrying about your rank (thats at least 95% of the people who have ladder anxiety - they simply overestimate their skill and think they deserve to be ranked better)
Case in point - EGIdrA - he knows his skill level so when he plays protoss who 3 pylons blocks him, he immediately quits without panicking about losing a ladder game because he knows what his true skill level is.
Anxiety exist only in the lower leagues and the sad truth is that this game is competitive so unless you stop whining about how you should be at a certain league and start working to get there the anxiety will remain.
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while this is a good read...i feel like you shouldn't have axiety to play ladder games...its a game... relax have fun. But good guide :D
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EDIT: i suck at using teamliquid forum
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On April 06 2012 12:52 ETisME wrote:
"to be stressed out, play once a week, static and repetitive in Diamond?"
oh snap, this sounds just like me lol
This. Is. Exactly. Me :D
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Russian Federation748 Posts
I don't have any ladder anxiety. But I'll trust you it really exists.
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Fear of losing ladder rank can be frightening for some people, but if you're losing due to the fact that you're trying out new strategies/ build = improving your game, then its good
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I used to play sc alot, but i always stayed rank 1 bronze, and there was alot of pressure each time i laddered because i never moved up but i knew each time i lost i would be set behind my goal. this was a very interesting thread, makes me more confident to play again. thankyou and gl hf with your psychology
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If I click the find match button and lose, I'll have no problem playing more games. If I win, I won't want to play more.
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On December 22 2011 04:44 Fawkes wrote:
But how do I even get myself to press that Find Match button? I haven't played since Season 1 and I only played like 40 games back then too T.T I want to play...I just fear that button, and pretty much everything you mentioned.
If you had played those last few seasons, you would've gained more than you lost by not playing. Also, if you get a 2nd account, you can make one account a, "I don't care what happens," and another account your "serious account."
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Great thread.
I have ladder anxiety problems, I dont get to play much due to my schedule so I try to assign a day or two per week which I can play, then sometimes I get to those days and put the games off or not play as many as I intended.
I found having a smurf account helped and I just cheesed a lot on it and played random and really didnt care how I did with it, I ended up placing gold and I am silver on my main, which helped me to realise that I should be in gold but my anxiety is holding me back from playing too much in silver, this season I probably managed about 40 games which is pretty low.
I also seem to suffer as much from winning streaks as I do from losing streaks, although the feeling afterwards is better, but I still stop myself from playing because I feel like my luck will run out and I will lose the next game(s)
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I must admit I've competed in fighting before, and that shock of Adrenaline hitting when I first started sc2 was a nice Hello there friend!!! As I was not expecting. When I realised that I could get off somewhat on a RTS game. Awesome, but its dulling great write up cheers.
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On April 07 2012 05:49 Count9 wrote:
I 100% recommend people get a "smurf" account if they're suffering from social pressures not playing the game. (i.e. the everyone I know is masters so I don't want to play cause I'm only plat) It's a little too bad Blizz decided to make a smurf account $60.
I 100% recommend ppl to not do this as it does not fix the underlying problem.
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Reading this helped me a lot and gave a me much to think about. Its amazing how accurate you address the problem and the feelings of laddering. Thanks so much
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On December 22 2011 04:18 clik wrote:
Fear of being demoted, general anxiety issues, fear of having to deal with the guy that places higher than you but is clearly a worse player, fear of not knowing why you lost or are losing to someone doing the most popular build they saw x pro gamer do, fear of constantly losing to the flavor of the month build, not accepting that you actually aren't anywhere near decent or good at the game, there are a a lot of reasons I've seen and have myself.
I believe a queue system that is unranked however still considers match making would really help people ease into things. Games like League of Legends do this and I know people that are afraid of ranked play but still play that game in unranked every single day for hours and hours.
Couldnt agree more.
Also I'm so mad that they still don't let you choose matchup and map.
How can Blizzard just ignore that the utility and usefulness of their Bnet and Matchmaking system is comparable to 10-15 YEARS old games which had probably 1/1000 of their budget.
edit:
I just called Blizzard and they said the technology for unranked games is just not there yet.
Time to wait.
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On April 09 2012 23:10 Bommes wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 04:18 clik wrote:
Fear of being demoted, general anxiety issues, fear of having to deal with the guy that places higher than you but is clearly a worse player, fear of not knowing why you lost or are losing to someone doing the most popular build they saw x pro gamer do, fear of constantly losing to the flavor of the month build, not accepting that you actually aren't anywhere near decent or good at the game, there are a a lot of reasons I've seen and have myself.
I believe a queue system that is unranked however still considers match making would really help people ease into things. Games like League of Legends do this and I know people that are afraid of ranked play but still play that game in unranked every single day for hours and hours. Couldnt agree more. Also I'm so mad that they still don't let you choose matchup and map. How can Blizzard just ignore that the utility and usefulness of their Bnet and Matchmaking system is comparable to 10-15 YEARS old games which had probably 1/1000 of their budget. edit: I just called Blizzard and they said the technology for unranked games is just not there yet. Time to wait.
Unranked games would be awesome for alot of people that get stressed out by win/loss stats.
Isn't it possible to join a custom game on a ladder map and get a random opponent already? How about making it so when you join a custom game you will automatically get an opponent similar to your league/mmr? Im sure this will help alot of people.
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On April 09 2012 23:10 Bommes wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 04:18 clik wrote:
Fear of being demoted, general anxiety issues, fear of having to deal with the guy that places higher than you but is clearly a worse player, fear of not knowing why you lost or are losing to someone doing the most popular build they saw x pro gamer do, fear of constantly losing to the flavor of the month build, not accepting that you actually aren't anywhere near decent or good at the game, there are a a lot of reasons I've seen and have myself.
I believe a queue system that is unranked however still considers match making would really help people ease into things. Games like League of Legends do this and I know people that are afraid of ranked play but still play that game in unranked every single day for hours and hours. Couldnt agree more. Also I'm so mad that they still don't let you choose matchup and map. How can Blizzard just ignore that the utility and usefulness of their Bnet and Matchmaking system is comparable to 10-15 YEARS old games which had probably 1/1000 of their budget. edit: I just called Blizzard and they said the technology for unranked games is just not there yet. Time to wait.
Why would you expect to able to choose the matchups and maps? That would straight up break the ladder and ranking accuracy.
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On April 10 2012 00:02 Ripebananaa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2012 23:10 Bommes wrote:On December 22 2011 04:18 clik wrote:
Fear of being demoted, general anxiety issues, fear of having to deal with the guy that places higher than you but is clearly a worse player, fear of not knowing why you lost or are losing to someone doing the most popular build they saw x pro gamer do, fear of constantly losing to the flavor of the month build, not accepting that you actually aren't anywhere near decent or good at the game, there are a a lot of reasons I've seen and have myself.
I believe a queue system that is unranked however still considers match making would really help people ease into things. Games like League of Legends do this and I know people that are afraid of ranked play but still play that game in unranked every single day for hours and hours. Couldnt agree more. Also I'm so mad that they still don't let you choose matchup and map. How can Blizzard just ignore that the utility and usefulness of their Bnet and Matchmaking system is comparable to 10-15 YEARS old games which had probably 1/1000 of their budget. edit: I just called Blizzard and they said the technology for unranked games is just not there yet. Time to wait. Why would you expect to able to choose the matchups and maps? That would straight up break the ladder and ranking accuracy.
There is no ranking if you play unranked. Doesn't mean it can't use your MMR to get similar skilled opponents.
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i already feel way better knowing that other people have the same fear :D
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Boy, if you got ladder anxiety, you will need an ambulance on your wedding day because a heart attack is guaranteed :D
Seriously though, I can't ladder because I too have this anxiety... it comes from cocky and immature oppponents that have nothing better to do than ruin other peoples days.
Also that adrenaline thing, I dont need cold hands and feet because of a stupid video game. Moving on.
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The reason you have anxiety is you're afraid of losing, nothing more. The moment you start to use losing as an opportunity to tick off boxes where you can improve is the moment you no longer have ladder anxiety.
Note, that does not mean you don't get irritated, angry or otherwise after a ladder loss. It just means you don't get cold feet going into a game against someone you don't know.
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On April 10 2012 19:03 cameler wrote:
Boy, if you got ladder anxiety, you will need an ambulance on your wedding day because a heart attack is guaranteed :D
Seriously though, I can't ladder because I too have this anxiety... it comes from cocky and immature oppponents that have nothing better to do than ruin other peoples days.
Also that adrenaline thing, I dont need cold hands and feet because of a stupid video game. Moving on.
Stop blaming others for your own mental weakness's.
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On April 09 2012 22:44 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2012 05:49 Count9 wrote:
I 100% recommend people get a "smurf" account if they're suffering from social pressures not playing the game. (i.e. the everyone I know is masters so I don't want to play cause I'm only plat) It's a little too bad Blizz decided to make a smurf account $60. I 100% recommend ppl to not do this as it does not fix the underlying problem.
This. I have a smurf account and I don't ladder on that either. The problem is hating to lose, not losing a couple of meaningless points.
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On April 10 2012 00:47 Bommes wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2012 00:02 Ripebananaa wrote:
Why would you expect to able to choose the matchups and maps? That would straight up break the ladder and ranking accuracy. There is no ranking if you play unranked. Doesn't mean it can't use your MMR to get similar skilled opponents.
How would a player ever have a proper MMR if he never plays ranked games?
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On April 10 2012 20:12 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2012 19:03 cameler wrote:
Boy, if you got ladder anxiety, you will need an ambulance on your wedding day because a heart attack is guaranteed :D
Seriously though, I can't ladder because I too have this anxiety... it comes from cocky and immature oppponents that have nothing better to do than ruin other peoples days.
Also that adrenaline thing, I dont need cold hands and feet because of a stupid video game. Moving on. Stop blaming others for your own mental weakness's.
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I'd also note an element of ladder anxiety comes from other peoples judgements of you. The worst case of ladder anxiety I had was when I used to be active on the WoW PvP forums and I knew every time I posted an opinion that deviated from the norm, I'd have some idiot armoury me and start mouthing off about my rating.
I know it's cliche to say "just get over it" but that's basically what you need to do.
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On December 22 2011 05:48 Bane_ wrote:
Could the design of the SC2 ladder itself be exacerbating the issue? I honestly don't remember hearing about this in previous games yet threads relating to it pop up all the time now on TL.
This is most certainly a huge problem. The league system causes a huge amount of issues. If you are rank 30,000 then falling to 30,100 isn't really a big deal. Falling from gold to silver however while in reality could be the exact same thing actually feels far worse for many people.
If I remember correctly warcraft 3 had a system where if you were not above a certain level you simply were not ranked. This would give a stress free environment to many people. For the people good enough to be ranked you would just have a straight up number and not all this league BS that doesn't even mean anything anyway.
That's the thing that baffles me the most. The leagues and your rank within that league actually doesn't tell you anything very meaningful. Yet it causes all these issues. The league system is just one more of Bnet 2.0's innumerable failures.
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If you want to enjoy the game, and you are one of those unfortunate morons that is scared to play 1v1, just play multiplayer like 3v3 and 4v4. I am a lot happier now that I quit 1v1 annd only play multiplayer. Yeah sometimes it sucks when you go against a premade team, but sometimes you actually beat them too and its awesome.
Here are some reasons why I think anyone that relates to this thread should quit 1v1 and play multiplayer:
1. You dont have to worry about doing everything "perfectly" and on time, you can slack a little bit.
2. You can rely on the other people on your team to give you support and answers (like scanning a DT for example)
3. You get to enjoy starcraft 2 while not having any "stress" on whether or not you are going to win or lose. You know why? Because if you lose in 4v4, so did the other 3 on your team. You arent alone
4. If you have a good game with some of the people on your team (or even the other team) you can invite them afterwards and continue to play good games.
After having played only 3v3 and 4v4 over the past week, I can honestly say that there is no reason to play 1v1, especially if you are going to stress over it. If you refuse to take my advice and at least try it for a while, and you want to continue forcing yourself to play 1v1 and suffer, then I dont feel sorry for you; you are an idiot.
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this is a great thread im a master terran and im afraid off loseing to players that are in diamond league but i think this whoud help me alot thanks and agien great thread
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all of my friends that play league of legends are afraid of doing ranked matches. and thats like 20 of them.
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For me the "Demotion can be good" part helped the most, because that was what I was afraif of the most. I've learned to accept that and now I'm having loads of fun playing sc2
Thanks man
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If you play multiplayer, it is hard to get demoted. Losing just has no meaning or impact. You get to play only the good parts of this game.
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its not that people are afraid of ladder. people are afraid of competitive gaming in general. 1v1 makes it feel competitive.
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I used to have terrible ladder anxiety (im high masters). I would literally get shaky hands when playing and make a lot of mistakes. Then one day, I left the GSL on while playing starcraft 2. Interestingly enough, Tastosis talking, and the GSL music made me feel relaxed. So I did an experiment. I turned on some soothing music...and I won 11 games in a row. I felt relaxed, and didn't have any thoughts like "omg I'm going to lose" or "I won a few games, my streak is going to end now" and the other anxious/demoralizing thoughts.
TLDR: try turning on whatever kind of music you find "soothing" or "relaxing" and play some games.
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Great article to bump in light of the "Nobody plays 1v1 anymore" thread. We were warned... and those warnings were only seen by tl'ers I really like the article though... think i ll go ladder later ; )
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Interesting read. While you're looking into sc2 from a psychological approach, I wonder if anyone could do a psychological analysis as to why certain people pick their sc2 races.
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Very well done article, I really appreciate the amount of effort you've put into this. I have only been playing starcraft for about two months now, I rarely get around to playing Ladder games because I always stress about heading into a game (most of the time clicking the find game button and then cancelling it and starting a bot game... >.>).
I have found your advice extremely helpful and will hopefully be able to play more often than I have been
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ladder anxiety is silly lol
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thank you to the OP and everyone that has commented in this thread, because this helped me A LOT. like said in the OP, once I realized that what I was feeling was just the adrenalin I had a way easier time clicking the Find Match button and more importantly to actually click it more than once. I still have the adrenalin rushing into my head whenever I play a game but I don't really get bothered by it now. I hope if I keep playing eventually the adrenalin won't even come at all, but I don't know if that is even an expected result.
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ladder fears? didnt realise there was anything at stake on the ladder :C
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its not called ladder anxiety. its called fear of competition aka casual players.
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You should read the book on Day9s recommended reading list: The Art Of Learing. It's written by a Chess Prodigy and Tai Chi Chuan champion. There's a lot of stuff in there on finding a relaxation trigger, attitude towards failure, using cheesers to fuel your passion rather than enraging you, playing well under pressure, etc.
I think it's to everyone's benefit to play 1v1. If you're the type of person who gets ladder anxiety what else are you afraid of in life that's holding you back? Getting over your fear of failure and rejection is something that can only help you in life.
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Some people just aren't up to competition. If you get that anxious over a game it's probably better to find another way to enjoy the game or stop altogether. You can only perform to your ability. With that in mind you shouldn't be scared of ladder but you should embrace it. You can never improve until you understand that playing is the only way. So you lose. Just que up another match and start clean. There are no real consequences if you lose. Unless you're a pro and make a living playing the game. This percieved notion of being measured and judged based on your ranking is hilarious. You play people in your general skill range. They are also strangers. It's the internet. If you think ladder is bad wait until you lead a meeting at your job, or you are in charge of a huge project where your job could be on the line. This is a game for most of us. It's in your best interest to learn how to take things in the correct perspective and see that ladder is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
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Wow, great article, props for doing this!
I am one of those people with brutal ladder anxiety, I still play Custom games and only those few maps that are played often because I just can't find strenght to play ladder that often without getting totally depressed after bad games and points/standing/league loss... it is bothering me so much but I just can't deal with it so I am just playing Customs most of the times, where nothing is on the line and where I am not constantly bombed with information saying how bad I am. :/
Worst thing: I was Diamond in beta where I somehow managed to explained to myself "it's beta, ladder means nothing, it will get ereased pretty soon, just play have fun and get better with each game - it's almost same as playing customs!" and for some reason after huge break from SC2 and after getting into lower leagues I just can't deal with it anymore.
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It's always interesting to hear the about the mental state of players when it comes to very cerebral games like SC2
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How about a better approach to ladder anxiety? How about they cut out all the dumb shit from the game like cheeses and all ins? There's no such thing as a good starcraft game that lasted less than 20 minutes, and if I'm avoiding ladder it's usually because I'm sick on the bullshit.
We need a better game...
User was warned for this post
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So you're saying, always research adrenal glands?
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You really nailed it, especially the problem with performing too good in a period, can cause you to fear the loosing streak about to come when you get better opponents.
If i win too much, i will switch account, so i can still play relaxed, and then take the loosing streak head on, when i start playing another day.
It is way less frustrating loosing a lot when you do not have the adrenaline from previous games still running in your blood.
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My biggest issue is the smurfing that is going on right now for the ladder. I just played against a bronze protoss top 8 who creamed me at 8 mins with 12 stalkers and 6 zealots. That's not even possible for a bronze player to accomplish at that level so yeah my opponent was a smurf and its the reason I rarely bother to ladder anymore because I'm not facing opponents of the proper league level.
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I wonder if it would be possible to create a SC2 mod where when you enter the game and log in, it hides your ladder rank / league and when you play a game in the loading screen it does not tell you whether or not your opponent is favored or unfavored, and after the game it hides your league/rank and your opponents league/rank from you and the only way you can find that information is by clicking them to find out
I would actually download that mod lol
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On June 01 2012 06:44 roymarthyup wrote:
I wonder if it would be possible to create a SC2 mod where when you enter the game and log in, it hides your ladder rank / league and when you play a game in the loading screen it does not tell you whether or not your opponent is favored or unfavored, and after the game it hides your league/rank and your opponents league/rank from you and the only way you can find that information is by clicking them to find out
I would actually download that mod lol
That's not a bad idea, but I feel like people would tally up losing streaks in their head and get discouraged anyway.
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On June 01 2012 03:31 Natespank wrote:
How about a better approach to ladder anxiety? How about they cut out all the dumb shit from the game like cheeses and all ins? There's no such thing as a good starcraft game that lasted less than 20 minutes, and if I'm avoiding ladder it's usually because I'm sick on the bullshit.
We need a better game...
Honestly if you don't think battles should happen before 20 minutes then this probably isn't the game (or genre) for you.
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On June 01 2012 06:48 Snoodles wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2012 03:31 Natespank wrote:
How about a better approach to ladder anxiety? How about they cut out all the dumb shit from the game like cheeses and all ins? There's no such thing as a good starcraft game that lasted less than 20 minutes, and if I'm avoiding ladder it's usually because I'm sick on the bullshit.
We need a better game... Honestly if you don't think battles should happen before 20 minutes then this probably isn't the game (or genre) for you.
He just needs BGH no attack 20 mins from BW... no big deal!
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On June 01 2012 06:38 Genie1 wrote:
My biggest issue is the smurfing that is going on right now for the ladder. I just played against a bronze protoss top 8 who creamed me at 8 mins with 12 stalkers and 6 zealots. That's not even possible for a bronze player to accomplish at that level so yeah my opponent was a smurf and its the reason I rarely bother to ladder anymore because I'm not facing opponents of the proper league level.
Did you check your opponents win ratio and see how many wins he has? Also check their last season's league. Most smurfs will have a high win ratio.
However, tbh, a 4 gate can be pulled off by any league. All one does is follow the build, and he'll have all those units up your base regardless of league.
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everytime i get ladder anxiety i just think about the mixed proleague and laugh at myself for thinking that my ladder means something. works every single time.
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On June 01 2012 07:29 aznkukuboi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2012 06:38 Genie1 wrote:
My biggest issue is the smurfing that is going on right now for the ladder. I just played against a bronze protoss top 8 who creamed me at 8 mins with 12 stalkers and 6 zealots. That's not even possible for a bronze player to accomplish at that level so yeah my opponent was a smurf and its the reason I rarely bother to ladder anymore because I'm not facing opponents of the proper league level. Did you check your opponents win ratio and see how many wins he has? Also check their last season's league. Most smurfs will have a high win ratio. However, tbh, a 4 gate can be pulled off by any league. All one does is follow the build, and he'll have all those units up your base regardless of league.
A bronze won't have the timing down for a 4 gate to arrive 8 mins no freaking way in hell and anyways the guy is trolling bronze level players because hes high gold. He hasn't lost a game in 5 days yeah someone else was playing on his account would not be surprised if it was a pro player who asked for his account to play on.
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On June 01 2012 07:29 aznkukuboi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2012 06:38 Genie1 wrote:
My biggest issue is the smurfing that is going on right now for the ladder. I just played against a bronze protoss top 8 who creamed me at 8 mins with 12 stalkers and 6 zealots. That's not even possible for a bronze player to accomplish at that level so yeah my opponent was a smurf and its the reason I rarely bother to ladder anymore because I'm not facing opponents of the proper league level. Did you check your opponents win ratio and see how many wins he has? Also check their last season's league. Most smurfs will have a high win ratio. However, tbh, a 4 gate can be pulled off by any league. All one does is follow the build, and he'll have all those units up your base regardless of league.
That guy seems like he could be high plat, not bronze.
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Thought this was Sean Spencer's ladder technique. Disappoint.
Juliet is hawt.
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Nice write-up. It's a good read.
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On April 27 2012 22:21 MigzR wrote:
ladder anxiety is silly lol
I cringe when I see these threads man
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Lol the biggest ladder anxiety problem for me is when my brother watches me play and calls me a shitty player throughout the game.
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I think the better analysis for ladder anxiety is this:
If you actively want to get better and you pursue your goals and have any shred of motivation you hit the find match button.
If you have "ladder anxiety" then you either:
a) are completely content with your current standing, and you mostly just don't want to go down.
b) don't have any motivation
c) don't enjoy playing 1v1 in the first place, but for some reason find yourself wanting/considering ladder periodically.
d) think you're better than everyone and heaven forbid that be invalidated.
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Can someone tell me why I have ladder anxiety, although I have no anxiety, if I play LAN (even vs unknown players)?
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I don't get this ladder anxiety thing. I know there are times were you tell yourself not to play Ladder, beause XYZ. But at the End it doesn't matter, just play whats the most fun to you and if you think Ladder is too stressfull - don't play.
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On June 01 2012 12:15 Inquisitor1323 wrote:
Lol the biggest ladder anxiety problem for me is when my brother watches me play and calls me a shitty player throughout the game.
Ehm, well then don't play when your brother's around because he's a dick?
I understand it's easier said than done, but that really is just him being a asshole :/
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I can pinpoint the source of my anxiety exactly.
I'm worried I'll get demoted after a loss streak. The thing is, no one knows my ladder ID. I'm not worried about public appearances. The only person I have anything to prove to is myself.
Realistically, my skill has reached a plateau (in plat, ironically) where I can tell that getting onward requires me to do focused training. I don't have the time or energy for it. And since I don't play SC2 socially, getting better at it is the only reason to play.
So just laddering to pass the time carries no reward for me (since I know I won't get to Diamond or Master by just spamming games), but does carry the risk of being demoted.
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On June 01 2012 21:21 Dingodile wrote:
Can someone tell me why I have ladder anxiety, although I have no anxiety, if I play LAN (even vs unknown players)?
On ladder, the mutual assumption is that your opponent is your enemy. Most 1v1 opponents won't pat you on your back when you lose to them, and you won't have the chance to rematch them.
Ie; ladder is basically a "BO1 to the death".
This leads to:
* More perceived social tension than LAN
* Stronger failure scenarios
Some solutions that have been suggested in this thread:
* Play customs
* Decide in advance how many games you are going to play (ie. make your own BO9, "you vs the ladder", or similar)
* As many have mentioned, "gging" and good manners help somewhat to lower the perceived social tension.
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I'd like to know what your take on individuals who fail to get ladder anxiety. Prior to returning to work full time I had more ladder games played than anyone in the top 500 of NA. I've been passed by several people due to not having time to play, but I've read many threads about ladder anxiety and I don't understand it at all. Am I abnormal?
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I don't see why anyone should care about ladder anxiety.
It's impossible to stuff up your account. The MMR Is set up in a way such that you will always be moved to your skill level.
If you get stressed because you got demoted, it shouldn't be stressful if you keep in mind, that you've been demoted because you're not good enough for that league, and that if you really are good enough for that league you will eventually be promoted.
You will win ~50% of games, and in the long run you will be place where you a meant to be. The ladder is self-correcting. So why are people afraid of it?
So what are you afraid of? Losing? Everyone loses half their games, half of all your time playing SC2 has already been spent in a losing game, it should be a very familiar and expected feeling.
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On June 08 2012 00:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
I don't see why anyone should care about ladder anxiety.
It's impossible to stuff up your account. The MMR Is set up in a way such that you will always be moved to your skill level.
If you get stressed because you got demoted, it shouldn't be stressful if you keep in mind, that you've been demoted because you're not good enough for that league, and that if you really are good enough for that league you will eventually be promoted.
You will win ~50% of games, and in the long run you will be place where you a meant to be. The ladder is self-correcting. So why are people afraid of it?
So what are you afraid of? Losing? Everyone loses half their games, half of all your time playing SC2 has already been spent in a losing game, it should be a very familiar and expected feeling.
Read the first post.
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On June 08 2012 01:02 Animzor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 00:27 paralleluniverse wrote:
I don't see why anyone should care about ladder anxiety.
It's impossible to stuff up your account. The MMR Is set up in a way such that you will always be moved to your skill level.
If you get stressed because you got demoted, it shouldn't be stressful if you keep in mind, that you've been demoted because you're not good enough for that league, and that if you really are good enough for that league you will eventually be promoted.
You will win ~50% of games, and in the long run you will be place where you a meant to be. The ladder is self-correcting. So why are people afraid of it?
So what are you afraid of? Losing? Everyone loses half their games, half of all your time playing SC2 has already been spent in a losing game, it should be a very familiar and expected feeling. Read the first post.
I did. It talks about psychological effects. But if you understand that the ladder is always right in the long run, regardless of how you play, that knowledge should trump those effects. It talks about all these ways to overcome being afraid and feeling bad. But all you need to understand is that how you play in a few games doesn't matter, losing streaks don't matter, neither do winning streaks, these are all short-run hiccups, in the long-run the ladder is always right.
Knowing that you cannot stuff-up, because the ladder is always right in the long run should be enough to stop you from caring about whether you won or lost the last 10 or 20 games. Because in the long run those games don't matter and your profile self-corrects.
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Great read, thanks OP for taking the time to write it up.
@paralleluniverse, perhaps you read the OP but you're missing that it addressed your question. According to his analysis players who experience ladder anxiety don't value being told what skill level they are. So, the fact that the ladder is always right isn't at all comforting. Rather, they want their league to reflect where they want to be. So if you're currently at a gold skill level and you want to be platinum or diamond, you're going to have a very stressful gameplay experience in trying to achieve something that isn't particularly feasible the next time you hit "Find game." And, you don't have to have experienced it to understand it. It is, after all, admittedly irrational.
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Pros tend to discount ladder anxiety because they see ladder points as worthless, since to them its not competitve but rather just a venue for practice. Their competitive outlet, what they're paid to do, are tournaments, so naturally tournament results are what they invest their ego into and where they get nervous ect. Casual players most likely never or very seldom compete in tournaments, so the only way they compete is through ladder. The metric by which a casual player measures their skill is 99% through their ladder rank, so ladder games take on the importance and urgency of tournament games, as well as all the anxiety that comes with being invested in the result of a competitve 1v1. Instead of being very disappointed in themselves because they lost a tournament in the early rounds, the casual player will be disappointed when they are only platinum when they really want to be diamond, and this creates anxiety.
Of course this is not a very productive attitude, as practice is much more rewarding when you treat it lightly and focus on learning, but that mindset is sometimes difficult to reach and players tend to get frusturated by losses and play less.
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Been trying to get myself to press the find match button for about a year now, I keep trying to find guides on how to "learn" the game, how to properly macro what are the "simple" starting buildorders etc.
When trying hard AI with just "scouting" it's rushes I lose 50% of the time.
I was Gold Random in season 1 and haven't played since simply because the overwhelming amount of information I still need to learn is daunting to say the least (hotkeys, buildorder, scouting, macro, hold of cheezes etc).
This in combination with me actually being unable to A click units properly due to all the adrenaline running through me at the start of just an AI game keeps me circling back to TL and youtube for guides.
Saw the record of a high master zerg who was bronze in season 1 and has been masters for two seasons now. I find myself thinking that If only I kept to my 5 games a day I'd be a bit better off but alas.
still shaking my bricks to even try the hard AI again.
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I kind of enjoy the adrenaline. I'm hoping that getting used to it through starcraft will help me deal with it better in real life situations. I'm sure we could benefit from learning to control our nerves. Public speaking is one thing that comes to mind.
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I just have to force myself to play games. I always enjoy it once I start. >.<
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Day9 just talked about this in his AMA, and cut the bullshit pretty badly, what he said was:
If you find it hard to play more than 3 games per day, just sit down, and tell yourself to play 10, or 20. Whatever the target is, just force yourself to do it and you'll be more comfortable with it.
Another thing which I've found to help some is to realise that only you care about your ladderpoints/league. Nobody else.
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Thank you so much This is very informative and I think i'll ladder now, silver league here I come !!!
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i felt so much better about laddering after reading this thank you soooooooo much!!!!
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I came here to get away from studying for my neuropsychology exam and came across this :p. Good read!
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A very well written and thought out post. Nicely done!
I used to have huge ladder anxiety. I would log on every day and never play a game. I didn't want to get demoted from Platinum. I had worked so hard to get there. After skipping 2 seasons I had to redo my placement games. I purposely lost all 5 so I would get placed in bronze so that my ego wouldn't get in the way of laddering.
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On June 08 2012 04:57 Vechora wrote:
Been trying to get myself to press the find match button for about a year now, I keep trying to find guides on how to "learn" the game, how to properly macro what are the "simple" starting buildorders etc.
When trying hard AI with just "scouting" it's rushes I lose 50% of the time.
I was Gold Random in season 1 and haven't played since simply because the overwhelming amount of information I still need to learn is daunting to say the least (hotkeys, buildorder, scouting, macro, hold of cheezes etc).
This in combination with me actually being unable to A click units properly due to all the adrenaline running through me at the start of just an AI game keeps me circling back to TL and youtube for guides.
Saw the record of a high master zerg who was bronze in season 1 and has been masters for two seasons now. I find myself thinking that If only I kept to my 5 games a day I'd be a bit better off but alas.
still shaking my bricks to even try the hard AI again.
Sounds like you need to set yourself subgoals. Learn one buildorder for one mu. When it's done, move to the next mu. Find on problem with your play, then move to the next. Dont look at the challenges collectively. It's way to overwhelming.
Also, it sounds to me like you need to realise just what skill-level you are at. Be honest with yourself. Dont make the games be about proving that "yeah! I CAN beat a hard AI/gold player!". Aknowledge you skill level, and play from there. And as others say, force yourself to play. The simply prolonged exposure to the anxiety will make it fade away over time.
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On December 22 2011 05:10 partysnatcher wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 04:14 Frumsan wrote:Great write-up! There are many aspects of the cognitive-behavioral theory I don't accede to though, so my question as a non-psychologist but with a lot of experience and education in the area is: How would the views you've just described (very eloquently) differ from a psycho-dynamic point of view? Thanks! CBT can, in a way, be considered psychodynamic, but I assume you mean the original philosophies like Freuds psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic point of view would see your anxiety as a representation of inner conflicts based in childhood. It would send you into months and months of talk therapy until all your overt and covert conflicts had been resolved and you had become a more relaxed person. However, a psychodynamic direction like Kohut's Self-psychology would focus very strongly on your narcissistic ego and ambitions. The "split" in personality many feel after a loss (where you become a different person for half an hour), would be considered a symptom of Self damage. Therapy would try to make your Self as whole as possible - and mutate your narcissistic drive to a healthy, productive narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder). But in general, cognitive-behavioral therapy is pretty much the most acknowledged method in psychology right now - it is highly acknowledged even outside of psychology - most strikingly when applied to the psychosomatic field; where it is far more effective than medicine. It is considered the most effective way to fix, for instance, sleep disturbances or irritable bowel syndrome. TL;DR: CBT is pretty good!
I studied psychology at university, I found it very interesting.
Some points I would add.
Modern psychology that is used today is only about 100 years old.
CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) is considered 'most popular' 'most used' approach to psych, however, my personal observations show that this is in correlation to human beings being 'good workers of society'. For example cognitive behaviour ignores the unique-ness of individuals, ignores the role of culture and the role of the unconcious. In effect, it is used to help people 'function better in regular society situations', hence I believe, why it is so popular among psychologists as it gets results fast (good value for money). This approach is often criticized for only 'scratching the surface'.
Trait approach is another example of psychology being used to help 'society have good workers'. Hence why this approcah is mainly used by Human resources managers trying to match people's traits to job traits.
Psycho-dynamic approach consider uniqueness of individuals and focuses on the unconcious. That is what I like about this approach above CB and Trait approaches. This can be a very expensive (psychologists arnt cheap when you need to go alot) and time consuming, but results not only help people become 'good workers in society' , but can have a greater positive affect on people due to it's work with the unconcious of the individual.
The humanistic approach to psych is one of my favourites. It is often criticized in modern psychology texts due to not strictly being in-line with scientific methods. This approach views humans beings as having a tendency towards growth and self-actualisation - it has spurred what is known as Positive Psychology.
To me, CBT and trait approach is a quick fix to help people 'function in society'. While the other two approaches looks more closely at the uniqueness of the individual and digs deeper into individuals.
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"Why do we get ladder anxiety"
That's dumb. Just press find match.
I really hate all the attention that's being given to it. Only very low level players seem to have a problem with laddering bronze-gold, so instead of feeding into it and acting like its a legitimate reason to not be improving, just tell them to man the fuck up and play and nobody is impressed by their current rank anyway. Know how you beat masters players on ladder? By playing ladder. All it does is match you up with opponents that are at a similar level to you based on the games you've had. There is absolutely nothing in the stakes other than your own improvement if you don't play.
Or, hey, don't ladder. Just play custom games. It really doesn't matter. Who cares?
It's not interesting because the entire concept is stupid. Play games, get better. If you can't handle a ranked ladder then gaming probably isn't for you.
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On June 26 2012 19:44 EneMecH wrote:
"Why do we get ladder anxiety"
That's dumb. Just press find match.
I really hate all the attention that's being given to it. Only very low level players seem to have a problem with laddering bronze-gold, so instead of feeding into it and acting like its a legitimate reason to not be improving, just tell them to man the fuck up and play and nobody is impressed by their current rank anyway. Know how you beat masters players on ladder? By playing ladder. All it does is match you up with opponents that are at a similar level to you based on the games you've had. There is absolutely nothing in the stakes other than your own improvement if you don't play.
Or, hey, don't ladder. Just play custom games. It really doesn't matter. Who cares?
It's not interesting because the entire concept is stupid. Play games, get better. If you can't handle a ranked ladder then gaming probably isn't for you.
Hey man, are you getting a nosebleed from being so high up on that horse?
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On June 26 2012 19:44 EneMecH wrote:
"Why do we get ladder anxiety"
That's dumb. Just press find match.
I really hate all the attention that's being given to it. Only very low level players seem to have a problem with laddering bronze-gold, so instead of feeding into it and acting like its a legitimate reason to not be improving, just tell them to man the fuck up and play and nobody is impressed by their current rank anyway. Know how you beat masters players on ladder? By playing ladder. All it does is match you up with opponents that are at a similar level to you based on the games you've had. There is absolutely nothing in the stakes other than your own improvement if you don't play.
Or, hey, don't ladder. Just play custom games. It really doesn't matter. Who cares?
It's not interesting because the entire concept is stupid. Play games, get better. If you can't handle a ranked ladder then gaming probably isn't for you.
Sorry, "man the fuck up" isn't considered valid advice. You sound like the type of person who tells depressed people to "think happy thoughts" because their life isn't really that bad, the type of person who tells a schizophrenic person that their hallucinations just aren't real,i.e a very uninformed person. Obviously ladder anxiety isn't as serious as the aforementioned, but the line of thinking analogous. If you haven't experienced it, then kindly shut up because you have no idea what you're talking about.
If you've found success in something, but your only advice to others is "man the fuck up", then you're not really introspective enough to know how you found that success.Society is rife with these kinds of people: those who stumble onto success without the same barriers(chance, environmental, or mental) as others, and attribute it all to character. These types are pretty useless as teachers to others.
If life life were as simple as "just do it", there wouldn't be obese people, there wouldn't be smokers, there wouldn't any people with any type of weakness.
Ladder anxiety is something most likely caused by factors outside the game itself, and the thought that the original poster put into it doesn't deserve your troglodytic wisdom.
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In BW, I have slight ladder fears but nothing serious, but in SC2, just pressing that find match button is so easy and relaxing(the only thing i appreciate in bnet2.0). I dont even get nervous, not even for the first time. It's not really that hard, you guys got it easier to get games.
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First time reading it, I really enjoyed your points, great read! : D I also have slight anxiety on ladder : (
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I suffer from anxiety disorder in my day to day life but, interestingly, feel no anxiety whatsoever when laddering (masters since season 1).
It seems that if you struggle to simply press Find Game, SC2 might not be the game for you. I say that not from a point of self-righteousness or arrogance, but rather because losing is such a fundamental, core part of laddering. I think an interesting exercise would be to see if anxious players can learn to embrace losing. Losing is the ultimate tutor. It offers endless lessons and methods to improve. In order to win, you need to learn how to lose, how to glean the difficult lessons of losing, and accept the harsh dose of humility it offers. Once you begin to look at losing as a positive part of your SC2 experience, ladder becomes easier and more fulfilling.
You are going to lose half your games. Always. Reread that sentence over and over, and get losing (and learning).
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I just don't find it fun.
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btw,
is there any information on when exactly the "unranked matchmaking" will be implemented. Is it in the patch 1.5 already, or wont it be released until HotS?
Because i think it might help people with ladder anxiety (at least some of them)
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Very well written, informative, and something I plan to apply. Thanks for this!
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I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG.
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On June 27 2012 06:24 IFF wrote:
I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG.
Try to remember how pivotal of a role perspective plays in our behavior and responses. To you, it is obviously just a "freakin video game" and you're able to minimalize its important in your everyday life. To others they value SC2 quite a bit in their day to day ventures, so with this sort of preemptive build-up, anxiety during laddering almost becomes inevitable.
I personally dont value SC2 very much in my own grand scheme of things, but I value competition. My competitive nature in sports growing up does not allow me to do anything but play to win...this does add some anxiety and adrenaline when I play, despite acknowledging the value of losing.
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I escape the anxiety by playing only 2v2 games. In 1v1 the stress can get really high and I won't play more than five games max a day.
Also, to the guy saying 'man the fuck up or this game isn't for you' I feel sorry for you that you are born a sociopath.
Great read, also great advise for my students (who get examfear and I have to talk them through it).
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Dear Partysnatcher!
You chose a really difficult subject there, because most of the times in psychological problems, it is uncertain what the solution is. I see the same problem in this case here.
I for example experience ladder anxiety for the reason how the concept of the game is. Starcraft 2 is a Real-Time-Strategy game, where the emphasis is on the words "Real-Time" and not "Strategy"! It is totally possible for a master zerg player to win against a gold terran player, where the master zerg goes mass zerglings and the gold terran goes mass blue flame hellions. Why?? Because the master zerg player has at least twice the APM (useful actions, not spamming) the gold terran player has. This truth is for everybody obvious, who plays this game. Everybody knows at lower levels "I have to be fast, fast, fast, in order to win, just make as many useful actions as you can, not necessarily in the right order, and i will 'outmacro' my opponent!!" ---> This is the truth! Everybody knows that!!
So what's the big pressure, that is weighting on me, when i play the game?? ---> Right, the TIME PRESSURE!! Paired with the time pressure is also something else: The fact, that you have VERY LITTLE CONTROL over the game. Lets say at gold level you are 90 percent of the time in the dark about what your opponent is doing!--> Fact. More control --> much more APM, much better mechanics.
And now comes my conclusion: I am a person, which can't deal too well with a situation, in which you have very less control. I 'need' a certain amount of control. And i think, this could maybe be the reason for other players aswell, why they can't deal with that time pressure and very low amount of control, that you have in this game----> Doing uncertain actions under big time pressure and very low control leads to the 'anxiety phenomenon'.
And if you are also a very ambitious person, it's also much harder.
Edit: But i feel, that some of the reasons you give, like the connection of your identity with a ladder and rank system being very brutal, are also right.
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How do you stop playing when you always feel like playing. That's why I never get my homework done .
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I have GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) so I frequently have anxiety about tons of stuff throughout the day. I have ladder anxiety, and generally while I'm playing 1v1, (I strive to play some, but I dont play nearly enough) my hands start shaking, I forget stuff, and my play is waaaaaay rougher than normal. I'm starting to calm down however. The way I'm doing this is similar to the what the OP said.
It helps, for me at least, to treat every 1v1 opponent as just playing against a friend. (I'm in bronze, btw) It also seems when you think of a thought that makes you anxious, such as the "Find Match Button" you latch onto the thoughts about your previous losses, and how terrible it was, and how you're going to face super tough players, etc, etc.
The way you combat this (Which is also a technique for stopping GAD, taught to me by a psycologist I met with) is you (using his anology) trap the thought that makes you anxious in a bubble in your head. You do not react to this thought. You take a step back from yourself almost, and think, yes, this is a thought/item that makes me anxious, but right now I am not going to react to it, and poof. 9/10 the thought dissapears. You simply do this every single time you get an anxious thought, and it starts to break the habit of fearing the 1v1 button.
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One of the best ladder anxiety threads on TL Awesome write up! Ty
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Good stuff, of course as a chemstudent I already know this to some extent,YET STILL after 5 seasons I've only played(~80wins + 120 custom games+campaign on all levels) .
I've been watching for 2h+(often a whole lot of more) SC2 prolevel gameplay each day for my interest, following every major tournament and players on twitter/streams. My knowledge of the game is far greater than the average player of the league im placed in imo(gold), but of course without practice you won't be able to physically utilize your knowledge.
The anxiety tends to make me slow and dumb during 1v1, but when playing against a computer to try a build-order my APM is hillariously increased.
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I used to get ladder anxiety.
But this was mainly because I used to smoke weed. It made me flustered during matches and having epic failure moments.
I'm a natural born competitor so optimizing and using strategy always made me enjoy SC2.
When i stopped smoking I got into masters off talented protoss build orders.
Anxiety for me is more of a problem when dealing with females, I'm sensitive to rejection so I get carried away by fear.
I cure that with booze so s'all good.
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Filter's guide taught me a lot, but probably the most important was forcing myself to "glhf" and "gg" every single game. It led me on to a much friendlier path and beeing able to compliment ur opponent actually makes u feel betyer about urself and takes away some of the "pressure"
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On June 27 2012 06:24 IFF wrote:
I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG.
While the OP was an interesting read...this is all that really needed to be said. It's a video game guys. If you're getting debilitating anxiety then you either are taking it way too seriously or you have some mental health issues. Everything must be put in the perspective of results. If you lose in a video game...what happens? Nothing.
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On July 28 2012 08:47 Karawasa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2012 06:24 IFF wrote:
I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG. While the OP was an interesting read...this is all that really needed to be said. It's a video game guys. If you're getting debilitating anxiety then you either are taking it way too seriously or you have some mental health issues. Everything must be put in the perspective of results. If you lose in a video game...what happens? Nothing.
Why are you even writing in this thread IFF? "STOP BEING A PUSSYGG."
Is that what you would like to tell pro gamers before big tournies? Starcraft 2 isn't a video game. What do you play? PS3? Xbox? Sc2 is a PC game in case you didn't notice. Or perhaps you like to insult ppl without understanding what you are writing? No respect for the OP at all....or for the ppl that have ladder anxiety.I'm surprised that didn't receive a warning.
"Everything must be put in the perspective of results". Well anxiety which is an irrational emotion is not rational, so your advice simply fortifies that you don't understand the ABC of anxiety (of any kind). I worry for you. In fact for a person having anxiety attacks of any kind, focusing on the result (I assume you mean win or lose?) is a really bad idea (will cause more anxiety). If what you meant is perspective (as in cmon guys this is just a video game) then again perspective is something that is created in the rational mind, a mental thing, which emotions can't relate to directly.
So what is helpful is to try and bridge the gap between rational mind and emotions which introduces some interesting techniques to reduce anxiety whose scope goes far beyond "video games" and can be applied to any performance/competitive arena.
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On July 29 2012 16:09 SoniC_eu wrote:
Is that what you would like to tell pro gamers before big tournies? Starcraft 2 isn't a video game. What do you play? PS3? Xbox? Sc2 is a PC game in case you didn't notice. Or perhaps you like to insult ppl without understanding what you are writing? No respect for the OP at all....or for the ppl that have ladder anxiety.I'm surprised that didn't receive a warning.
Most people are not pro gamers. I wouldn't tell a pro gamer that because money is on the line. Tell me though, what does the average joe with ladder anxiety have to lose except a few inches off his e-penis?
On July 29 2012 16:09 SoniC_eu wrote:
Well anxiety which is an irrational emotion is not rational, so your advice simply fortifies that you don't understand the ABC of anxiety (of any kind). I worry for you.
I worry for you for worrying about me. But seriously, you are wrong. Anxiety is not an irrational emotion. Anxiety is just like any other emotion. If the underlying cause is irrational than it too is irrational. Otherwise, it is perfectly rational.
On July 29 2012 16:09 SoniC_eu wrote:
If what you meant is perspective (as in cmon guys this is just a video game) then again perspective is something that is created in the rational mind, a mental thing, which emotions can't relate to directly.
So what is helpful is to try and bridge the gap between rational mind and emotions which introduces some interesting techniques to reduce anxiety whose scope goes far beyond "video games" and can be applied to any performance/competitive arena.
You are creating a false gap. Perspective has a direct impact on emotion...and emotion has a direct impact on perspective.
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Average joe could be a friend of urs...if your friend had anxiety of any kind, would you tell him to "man up" (whatever message that it implies there) or actually try and understand and help him?
As for the anxiety argument well, as I have had courses in uni, in this area I can explain the definitions. If the underlying cause is rational it's called fear. If the underlying reason is more abstract or irrational it's called anxiety. You can look it up if you want, or you can just read what I write: Fear is a rational emotion (think fight or flight, adrenaline etc) in response to a harmful stimuli and is indeed quite healthy and natural response. Anxiety is a more abstract emotion that CAN be caused by something entirely irrational. That is the difference. Anxiety can have a base in something that doesn't actually signify any harm to the organism. So in fact I wasn't wrong, and if I was I would be the first to admit it. It's ok, you have nothing to lose except a few inches of your e-penis.
False gap? Well your mind and emotions aren't one and the same so obviously there exists a duality there. Obviously perspective affects emotions and vice versa (that's just a fact), and that wasn't my point at all. My point was that the rational mind and emotions should operate in a healthy fashion ie. not create negative feedback loops.
Sad to see this topic get derailed :-/ Such an awesome write up...I just re-read it again. Props to the author.
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On July 28 2012 08:47 Karawasa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2012 06:24 IFF wrote:
I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG. While the OP was an interesting read...this is all that really needed to be said. It's a video game guys. If you're getting debilitating anxiety then you either are taking it way too seriously or you have some mental health issues. Everything must be put in the perspective of results. If you lose in a video game...what happens? Nothing.
I think you're failing to take into aspect everything that was actually in the original post. Just because people have ladder anxiety doesn't mean they don't enjoy playing SC2. They have a hard time getting started and their ego is connected to their rank on the ladder(yes, some people are wired that way) because of a few potential losses. Wouldn't that suck to just have a shitty day and still decide to play even though you're actually going to play terribly and drop a 100 points or in some cases get a demotion?
You can't just tell someone "If you're way too serious about something, then you should just quit and do something else"
With everyone having that attitude we'd have pretty shitty olympians bouncing about on TV right now.
I also understand that this phenomenon is just something you have or you don't and the ones who don't are for the most part assholes about it to the ones who do. Try and respect it/ignore it instead of calling people mentally unstable.
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You are in psychology and it shows! Great article, I didn't even know I had adrenaline rushing before every game and wasn't afraid of laddering but I think I have been letting the rush confuse me. (I thought I was just getting really queasy all of a sudden, it's the same feeling I get when I see blood so that's interesting too) This is awesome, I can embrace it now! And I did notice I got really shaky and thought it was messing me up- translate started building fear/nervousness.
For one who didn't struggle until after starting a game, I am surprised a ladder fear thread helped so much. Thanks again!
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First of all, great post. Congratulations.
I too suffer from anxiety. And it is so great that I find it difficult to play (or draw, or do any other thing that i like that is based on my skill) even by myself on yabot. It's a shame there are people who don't even try to understand those difficulties of others and suggest things like "just man up".
Dealing with unrealistic expectations
I personally know several people who just stopped playing based on not wanting to get demoted. Others keep their unrealistic placements alive by cheesing, and some play only when they are at 130% performance, staying alive by overperforming every time. These people would rather keep an “undeserved” gold league placement, than to give up their fantasy - their over-estimatated perception of skill.
This describes perfectly what I feel: I have this image on my mind that i should be good, since I like and know so much from the game. So I get afraid to play because I'll become frustrated if I don't live by my expectations.
This is horrible. And it affects me not only in SC2. As I mentioned, i like to draw, but I get blocked the same way. I put too much expectation, and don't do a thing for fear of getting frustrated.
"Just do it" is quite simple, and on its own way, correct. However, it is simple and correct for the rational mind. I know I should just do it, but "something" (the irrational part of my mind) prevents me from "just doing it".
I'll try your suggestions OP. And thanks for this post.
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Very interesting. I play alot of wc3 still, and i used to have alot of ladder anxiety there. I have learned how to just enjoy playing games though (ofc i also play(ed) BW and sc2). But alot of the tips you gave are actually the ones that have worked out for me while getting rid of that anxiety. If you had only entered my life sooner.. oh how many more ladder games i would've been able to geek through. This was a very good read! And oh, best of luck with that degree!
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I find that turning down the sound or even turning it off helps to calm me down by a huge amount!
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I never suffered from ladder anxiety, but what I once told a friend (who did suffer from it) 'cured' his ladder anxiety. I said 'don't do it [talking about 1v1 ladder], what if you lose?'
It really put things into perspective I guess.
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fantastic thread OP. i honestly had a LOT more fun during the beta when everyone was trying to be creative and i didnt give two shits about my league. after release though i tried to get "serious" and every time i come back to sc2 after a break im super worried about playing poorly and getting demoted. i'm really going to take your post to heart and try to enjoy myself a little more and from there i can play more ladder matches
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Blizzard should have the public test server up at all times. There people could pratice on ladder.
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This is perfect. I have such intense ladder anxiety... and I do get ladder-rage when my team mates mess up in 2v2.
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It actually kind of worries me that people even have this problem. TL kind of makes it seem like every player ever gets ladder anxiety and can't play those games. At what point in any other game ever made does ladder or even multiplayer anxiety become a big deal? What about starcraft makes it ok, and normal, to invest that much (personally, as in, not just as a hobby or interest) into something so trivial?
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For those with ladder anxiety, are you generally an anxious person when you go to social outings, try new experiences, travel, etc...?
Exposure really is the best way to deal. I have a bud who had pretty bad ladder anxiety. In this case, there are only two options- stop playing the game (which can be hard in itself because many sc2 gamers are addicted), or expose yourself to losing... repeatedly.
He decided he didn't want to give up sc2, so I went on his comp and auto quit several games in a row. Then I forced him to play with the rule whether he was about to win or his opponent was about to win, he would quit and MUST gg (this is also important because it forces you to deal with anger and other negative feelings the game brings on.
If you don't deal with ladder anxiety on your own, you should really seek professional help because that anxiety will carry over to other, much more important aspects of your life.
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december 2011? why have i never seen this before???
"appraisals... OF DOOM"
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[QUOTE]On August 01 2012 09:21 prOpSaiton wrote:
[QUOTE]On July 28 2012 08:47 Karawasa wrote:
[QUOTE]On June 27 2012 06:24 IFF wrote:
I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG.[/QUOTE]
You can't just tell someone "If you're way too serious about something, then you should just quit and do something else"
With everyone having that attitude we'd have pretty shitty olympians bouncing about on TV right now.
I also understand that this phenomenon is just something you have or you don't and the ones who don't are for the most part assholes about it to the ones who do. Try and respect it/ignore it instead of calling people mentally unstable. [/QUOTE]
You're right, but not for the reason you think... If you quit something because of anxiety, you will have trouble succeeding in any area.
But... the train of thought that sc2 or sports or any other game is somehow more important because one in a million people make a living out of it is childish. I saw the same thing with the kids I worked with at Children's Hopsital. They'd spend literally every waking hour playing basketball, and when I asked them what they wanted to do when they grew up, the majority of them said "pro baller". They then throw their lives away chasing a pipe dream and end up working at a fast food chain or joining a gang. Parents and adults need to give their kids hard lessons and tell them things they sometimes don't want to hear, and sadly a lot of gamers seem to be lacking someone willing to do it. Sometimes you just have to be honest with yourself and admit that anything, even a hobby like sc, can be harmful to your development
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An interesting and helpful topic. I'm a person having anxiety issues IG and IRL in a competitive environment, and this read did help me a lot rationalize things i did think about in the past but couldn't really write about.
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[QUOTE]On August 05 2012 02:14 tskarzyn wrote:
[QUOTE]On August 01 2012 09:21 prOpSaiton wrote:
[QUOTE]On July 28 2012 08:47 Karawasa wrote:
[QUOTE]On June 27 2012 06:24 IFF wrote:
I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG.[/QUOTE]
You can't just tell someone "If you're way too serious about something, then you should just quit and do something else"
With everyone having that attitude we'd have pretty shitty olympians bouncing about on TV right now.
I also understand that this phenomenon is just something you have or you don't and the ones who don't are for the most part assholes about it to the ones who do. Try and respect it/ignore it instead of calling people mentally unstable. [/QUOTE]
You're right, but not for the reason you think... If you quit something because of anxiety, you will have trouble succeeding in any area.
But... the train of thought that sc2 or sports or any other game is somehow more important because one in a million people make a living out of it is childish. I saw the same thing with the kids I worked with at Children's Hopsital. They'd spend literally every waking hour playing basketball, and when I asked them what they wanted to do when they grew up, the majority of them said "pro baller". They then throw their lives away chasing a pipe dream and end up working at a fast food chain or joining a gang. Parents and adults need to give their kids hard lessons and tell them things they sometimes don't want to hear, and sadly a lot of gamers seem to be lacking someone willing to do it. Sometimes you just have to be honest with yourself and admit that anything, even a hobby like sc, can be harmful to your development[/QUOTE]
One in a million: 7000 people on earth are allowed to make a living from games/sports at any one time.
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what is anxiety?
as someone who has studied a little bit of "pua" ive concluded that most of the PUA companies out there are just pushing nonsense and BS to scam nerds into buying their products. But at the same time, i think theres a little bit of "truth" to it because men and women exist, and women are having sex, which means some dude must be having sex with a woman somewhere... etc... so that means that dude must be doing something right... so there probably is some kind of "pua knowledge" and "game" out there but i think its so abstract and weird that no pua company really has the true answers yet. Also in my own personal adventures into "pua game" i have approached over 1500 females (i normally do like 30 approaches every weekend. over 2.5 years thats around 1500 approaches)
in my own personal adventures into "pua game" one thing i believe ive concluded is that there probably is no "set rules" because all women are so different. it seems there are some girls that "game" works on, and some girls that "game" wont work on and they pretty much just decide instantly whether or not they wanna bang you on looks alone (or maybe some small social perception) and after their decision no game will work on them. and when i say "game" i dont mean like some player trying to trick a girl, thats a myth about game that girls dont get. many girls will say "oh yeah im not one of those girls that game works on. becuase those are just young girl sluts. girls like me who know what they want game wont work on" and to that i say no you dumb broad... rofl... when i say "game" all i really mean is "personality". if you are a female and you can logically look at the world and conclude that you are probably attracted to your partner because of his "personality", then that means game works on you. because thats all game is, trying to mold your personality to be what would attract the female.
and what im trying to say here is ive met women that in my honest opinion truly seems like they would be "immune" to any type of "game" that an expert pua could come up with. Theres lots of women out there that simply decide if they dont like a guy and thats it once she decides she doesnt like you she is immune to all your game. And then theres lots of women out there that are more receptive to "game" and when i say "game" i just mean a mans overall true personality and wit and charm and just who he is. some women are receptive to that, some arent.
now you may be asking why the hell did i just talk a whole lot about picking up chicks and what does it have to do with this thread?
well not much. but there is a reason i just did a huge write up on it and this is why.
Many training pua's will report that something exists in most likely all men. Maybe theres some men out there that dont have this, but most do. Its most likely genetic, and maybe some men have weaker version of this but here is what im talking about.
APPROACH ANXIETY
almost all men have approach anxiety. and many pua's have looked at it and tried to think about what it could truly possibly be, and the general consensus is that approach anxiety is a emotion that humans created because it helped us survive a long time ago and this emotion is linked with other fear/anxiety emotions that most mammals seem to have. If you own a dog and you scream at it and grab a large stick and chase it and scream at it and look like your gonna start beating it with the stick, your dog will most likely fall to the ground with its tail tucked into its legs and start shaking in fear. that is a form of anxiety, just a greater form.
as a venturing PUA who has felt approach anxiety many times i can feel whenever i feel that feeling that it very closely resembles the feeling of fear. So i think most Anxiety when it strikes is probably very closely related to the fear center of the brain, and we can call it rational or irrational but its a healthy mechanism that many animals created which most likely increased their chances of survival. healthy amounts of fear can in many situations be a good emotion to have.
EDIT: crap i pressed "post" too soon i was probably gonna write another paragraph. but hmmm i think the above summarized pretty well my idea of what anxiety truly is
some people call it a irrational emotion. well thats just a play on words really. call it rational or irrational who cares about that debate
many humans have anxiety in many situations and its my theory as a pua that people who have more anxiety than others probably just lack self confidence, but its not really self confidence, humans were designed to have anxiety by evolution and people like me who are able to blast through their anxiety i guess just somehow developed some kind of system to not be effected by it too much. and the people who have problems with anxiety somehow i dont know if its genetic or upbringing just dont have that same system inside them.
but i wont call it "self confidence" because anxiety is SUPPOSED to be there. humans created those anxiety emotions because 2 million years ago it was healthy to feel anxiety if you ventured 5 miles away from your tribe and you were alone in the woods.
i guess the people who suffer from increased anxiety are just those who are still getting those natural normal feelings the human brain is designed to create, and its a powerful feeling, and they just through unluckiness or whatever (maybe genetics, i dont know) have a harder time just blasting past that anxiety feeling and "not caring" about it. i dont even like to call it "self confidence" because im sure many men are confident and suffer from anxiety... its "something else" and i dont know what that "something else" is
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On December 22 2011 03:47 partysnatcher wrote:
Hi!
I am a psychology student and a SC2 player (have played prize level in other games). My psych degree is soon done, and I see the problem with ladder anxiety as a real challenge for SC2 in competition with more casual platforms (like Dota/LoL).
Blizzard have introduced a rather brutal league-system that directly connects your identity and ego with a league. This is probably part of the cause of the ladder anxiety phenomenon in SC2. Another factor is SC2’s focus on 1v1s, which is by far the most emotionally intense form of competition (eliminated in LoL/Dota/CS/etc by focusing on team play), and much of the reason why SC2 has relatively few casual gamers.
Reducing ladder (and tournament) anxiety in general is the main focus of this article. It also touches on related subjects; getting demoted and general lack of enjoyment with the game due to performance pressure.
The approach below is based on affect research and the cognitive-behavioral approach. First is a detailed scientific discussion aimed at those with high ladder/tournament anxiety, who have simply stopped playing - and at the bottom is a TL;DR for everyone. There will be tips to improve, but the main goal of this article is to A) decrease irrational anxiety and B) increase real enjoyment.
Off we go!
--------------------
TL;DR:
* You have ladder anxiety, and you are a human. Try to be analytic, and eliminate emotions in your thoughts about gaming. They’re not informative or helping.
* Don't let your "ladder anxiety" choose when you play SC2. Then you will never play again! To start up, rather than playing "when you feel like it", try to schedule in advance when to play, and when to stop playing. (I used 5 games as an example)
* Consider buying a smurf account to reduce ego issues.
* Get used to adrenaline. Realize that adrenaline is not fear. Realize that adrenaline does not control your consciousness unless you insist on letting it.
* Analyze losses before they happen.
* Analyze losses after they happen.
And finally, establish your real, Current Skill level. Embrace that knowledge. Grow from there. Is it better to play several times a day, with creativeness and self-confidence, in Platinum - or to be stressed out, play once a week, static and repetitive in Diamond?
i have a few things to comment on--very simple things and i'll address the TL:DR to shorten things even more.
first of all, a different set of 1v1 situations always occur in a moba like DotA or LoL.
your lanes can be seen as a seperation or mini-border setting those 1 on 1 situations in place. there is only so much map however and although there are so many options and possibilities for the combinations of the characters in a game, (considering items also) there's still only so much you can do to win your 1v1 fight or to come out ahead in your lane.
the emotional tension that comes from that (quite literally your team will sometimes rag on you for your failures in lane) is not entirely eliminated. i'll stress once again that there are preconceptions of how a lane should normally play out.
from here and to me, the main difference between the strategy game and the moba type gameplay is in the teamplay just as you say. nothing will happen on your side of the map (in a strategy game) unless you do something, while in mobas, there are several things that constantly happen and somewhat create that setting for you (mobs, jungle spawns, teammate performances, passive gold). you naturally have less control over all of these elements as they occur all at once (when compared to real-time strategy starcraft).
this is where i see a lot of people stumped. it is all on them to make things happen and the mistakes results of mostly some lack of foresight/skill. for some of my friends this is where the idea of playing stops---the 1 on 1 is scary already.
how do you actually get someone interested? ..especially people who find themselves frustrated more easily?
what i've kept and has helped me the most is some sense of humbleness.
for example, that idea that everything i do, could be done better in some way.. every good move i made started with some mistake from an opponent that i happened upon.
most of my motivation to play came from different sources, but at the back of my mind at every moment of gameplay, i was thinking of what i could do to extend upon myself, better myself and my play... finding more mistakes and more often, being as efficient as i'd like to be, trying my hardest despite any obnoxious comparisons of skill, time, handicap, or lack of fair balance.
i think it is very good to tell yourself that your emotions don't matter, but i also think that embracing your emotion and style of thinking is what creates this unique feeling of how the game is important for you. starcraft is an art where we have so much style and face+name recognition. we love players and their play through starcraft and what they do because of this game. changing yourself and your attitude is very difficult and more or less not worth the effort for many people.
some people tell me that time (or in other words, spending time and focusing on things over time) only grow to make a situation worst. i honestly feel that that idea is a sort of fear.. so despite all the random text i'm spewing, i think in the end that it's best to have a sense of existentialism---to have an idea of what it is like to play with all corners of different styles, techniques, or even mindsets---then to make the game your own with the thought that there is so much more out there to learn and improve on.
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Having read quite a few articles on "ladder anxiety", I can honestly say that this is one of the few that has taught me something new about how and more importantly why my body is reacting the way it does when I ladder.
Very interesting read, thanks for writing this!
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[QUOTE]On August 05 2012 04:04 GuitarBizarre wrote:
[QUOTE]On August 05 2012 02:14 tskarzyn wrote:
[QUOTE]On August 01 2012 09:21 prOpSaiton wrote:
[QUOTE]On July 28 2012 08:47 Karawasa wrote:
[QUOTE]On June 27 2012 06:24 IFF wrote:
I have the solution to not being "psyched out" in a freakin video game: STOP BEING A PUSSY. GG.[/QUOTE]
You can't just tell someone "If you're way too serious about something, then you should just quit and do something else"
With everyone having that attitude we'd have pretty shitty olympians bouncing about on TV right now.
I also understand that this phenomenon is just something you have or you don't and the ones who don't are for the most part assholes about it to the ones who do. Try and respect it/ignore it instead of calling people mentally unstable. [/QUOTE]
You're right, but not for the reason you think... If you quit something because of anxiety, you will have trouble succeeding in any area.
But... the train of thought that sc2 or sports or any other game is somehow more important because one in a million people make a living out of it is childish. I saw the same thing with the kids I worked with at Children's Hopsital. They'd spend literally every waking hour playing basketball, and when I asked them what they wanted to do when they grew up, the majority of them said "pro baller". They then throw their lives away chasing a pipe dream and end up working at a fast food chain or joining a gang. Parents and adults need to give their kids hard lessons and tell them things they sometimes don't want to hear, and sadly a lot of gamers seem to be lacking someone willing to do it. Sometimes you just have to be honest with yourself and admit that anything, even a hobby like sc, can be harmful to your development[/QUOTE]
One in a million: 7000 people on earth are allowed to make a living from games/sports at any one time.
[/QUOTE]
Does it matter what the exact number is? It's a pipe dream. You have a much better chance of becoming a doctor or a surgeon (~650,000 in US alone) than you do of making decent living in games. That isn't even factoring the short career of many gamers or athletes and the setback they face when entering the work force after retiring from games.
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I used to have Ladder Anxiety about being Demoted, losing to worse people then me, and whatever else. I also have GAD.
The best way to get over the fear of demotion is that If you truly belonged in that league, you will quickly make it back into that league instead of your new lower league, and if you are in Bronze, you can only go up.
Next season, for anyone in bronze and wanting to get better, strive to get Silver. I did it this season, it's entirely possible, and you might realize you're better than you thought.
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Hello! I just read this topic and thought it to be very interesting. Very nice writing! I personnally think that creating a nice atmosphere for every game from the start really can help not only myself but my opponent too, so I try to add something with the usual «gl hf» just to announce the guy I'm playing with I am willing to make this game fun for us both and am willing to be well mannered and am open for discussion (something as simple as «hey there» or «how you doing» can do the job I think). Oh and watching the «ladder anxiety» series from Husky can help too!
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yer i'm a silver player but got demoted to bronze in lotv i always shake and feel like smoking after each game it gets so bad that i feel faint like makes me feel bad about playing the game that i love but don't play it as often as i would love to but i love watching the game i love the game so much but always find it hard to actually pull my self to play it cause it cause me to fear what could happen like being a bronze player (who was silver) i dunno why it's the only game game that dose it ?may because i love it s much but yer makes me feel bad about myself sometimes for losein i dunno why i feel this why makes me not wanna play never known i might have an problem i though it was just me but thank you this a read it and i'm going to try to put it to practise hope it helps but maybe other thing in my life life self-esteem for myself may be a deeper feeling and this game brings it out cause the feeling is that strong hopefully i can doit it's a very strange feeling tbh yer
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Its only fun if every mouseclick every moment feel like a matter of life and death!
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Quite possibly the best post on the forum in ages, very informative
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I feel anxious just reading this post lol
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i did my degree in games computing and software development over 10 years ago, my findings into this part of gaming was that people who really get ladder anxiety actually dont like playing the game as much as they say they do. Fake internet points sometimes can mean everything to someone which is totally irrational. Back then i was so bothered about my ranks in certain games, halo 2 being the main one, i look at the disgust of the time ive sunk into that and other games. I concluded mostly its a disorder(now, dont go crazy with that statement, it hasnt got a name or at least not back then) found in majority male gamers, the idea of being good at something and wont accept that other people are better, you stop playing.
You cant accept the loss. But its your favourite game and you profess you love it. On reading this post i went looking for my assignment to link for everyone to read but since moving house i cant find my uni box, which has me worried on so many levels now, i need this shit for my teaching jobs.
Anyway, my findings were quite dark but there wasnt much of a scene in the late 90's early 2000's. It was a taboo subject, older people playing games, not like the 20 - 40 demographic we seem to have now, and the age is getting wider! It was regarded as a kids thing, difficult to find adult and teenage gamers who considered themselves hard core so i had to redefine the term hardcore to get my samples.
A tip my professor gave to me when i did this is really try to look at all the sides of the argument before you go into the how to stop it, because you cant, have a look into the post actions of people who play games and their backgrounds, its really interesting the correlations you find.
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Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly.
While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue).
Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it.
In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend.
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Great work, interesting reading !
thanks
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On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend.
A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times.
However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that.
+ Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference.
So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear.
So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it?
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On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend. A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times. However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that. + Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference. So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear. So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it?
On one hand, I can agree with you (why not let anyone have any advice, after all). On the other hand, I have mentioned that I think some of the advice is not only not helpful, but outright harmful for the receiver (make a smurf), some stems from OP's ignorance of the game and some is harmful generally to the goals I have about the game (I don't like to be not able to see my MMR just because other people are too sensitive for that). But I concede that me pointing out actual flaws can be easily hidden in the surrounding ranting
In a somewhat tangential note, you would be surprised how much the "western" thinking you describe has taken over the "East" in the last two decades. What you describe, while stereotypical, would have been pretty spot on in the nineties, but it's really fading. I am just old enough
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On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:
However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad...
the best approach to dealing with ladder losses is to have a life going on beyond SC2 ladder play.. keep it what it was meant to be ... a game... if u take urself so seriously you can't laugh at urself during losses u probably aren't having much fun when u win either.
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On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend. A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times. However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that. + Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference. So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear. So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it? If you are scared of playing ladder because you can't bear the thought of not being the best, does that apply to everything else in your life? How do you even get up in the morning? In the end I think so called ladder anxiety is just people not enjoying playing the game and in your case, attributing this to cultural issues.
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On February 14 2016 04:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend. A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times. However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that. + Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference. So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear. So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it? If you are scared of playing ladder because you can't bear the thought of not being the best, does that apply to everything else in your life? How do you even get up in the morning? In the end I think so called ladder anxiety is just people not enjoying playing the game and in your case, attributing this to cultural issues.
Yeah, if you love the game enough, you can overcome the ladder fear. It not like it's this excruciating physical pain. It's more like an uncomfortable annoyance. But it puts a higher passion-threshold to playing the game. I personally really enjoy starcraft, watch it regularly and have played since sc vanilla (yeah, I'm old as well oppiska) from launch. I'd say I have my share of passion for starcraft. However, I like other games as well, and if I want to play a few games in the evening, it is simply so much more relaxed (for me) to fire up diablo 3 or heroes of the storm instead.
Regarding not getting up in the morning. There is actually a kindof widespread problem with depression in most western countries that seems to large extent stem from these high expectations from society[citation needed]. High suicide rates and whatnot. So yeah, while most people cope with it in everyday life, I think this phenomenon is also causing a lot of issues in the real life of some people. It's tempting for people that don't suffer from it go just "man up you wuss", but that hasn't proven to be very helpful advice, rather it is just reinforcing the problem I think. :/
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France12796 Posts
On February 14 2016 02:21 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend. A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times. However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that. + Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference. So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear. So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it? On one hand, I can agree with you (why not let anyone have any advice, after all). On the other hand, I have mentioned that I think some of the advice is not only not helpful, but outright harmful for the receiver (make a smurf), some stems from OP's ignorance of the game and some is harmful generally to the goals I have about the game (I don't like to be not able to see my MMR just because other people are too sensitive for that). But I concede that me pointing out actual flaws can be easily hidden in the surrounding ranting In a somewhat tangential note, you would be surprised how much the "western" thinking you describe has taken over the "East" in the last two decades. What you describe, while stereotypical, would have been pretty spot on in the nineties, but it's really fading. I am just old enough
I don't really see how a smurf isn't helpful.
Sure now that there is unranked and that you can leave league, a smurf isn't mandatory. But before that it could be helpful to have an account where you could try strats and have shitty ranks that isn't your main.
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On my main account, top 1-3 diamond trying to push into masters (never been there before) I get sweats, shakes, the whole bit. Ladder anxiety so bad. Every win or loss feels like its life or death. I usually have to take at least 5 minutes between games to just let my whole nervous system come down.
On my wife's bnet account (also has lotv), I am mid diamond with a very similar win record but hover around 25-50 diamond. No sweating. No stress at all. Just don't care and it's really nice.
I think there is a definite advantage playing on an account you don't care about. I just hope it will eventually lead to me not stressing so much when it "matters" ... will see.
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I'm glad this got bumped or I'd have missed it! I was in masters league in WoL and stopped for a year, then tried to play HoTS ladder with expectations that were way too high on myself. I haven't even tried LoTV ladder because of that bad experience, but going in with the right mindset detailed in the OP could definitely be helpful.
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On February 14 2016 13:08 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2016 02:21 opisska wrote:On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend. A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times. However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that. + Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference. So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear. So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it? On one hand, I can agree with you (why not let anyone have any advice, after all). On the other hand, I have mentioned that I think some of the advice is not only not helpful, but outright harmful for the receiver (make a smurf), some stems from OP's ignorance of the game and some is harmful generally to the goals I have about the game (I don't like to be not able to see my MMR just because other people are too sensitive for that). But I concede that me pointing out actual flaws can be easily hidden in the surrounding ranting In a somewhat tangential note, you would be surprised how much the "western" thinking you describe has taken over the "East" in the last two decades. What you describe, while stereotypical, would have been pretty spot on in the nineties, but it's really fading. I am just old enough I don't really see how a smurf isn't helpful. Sure now that there is unranked and that you can leave league, a smurf isn't mandatory. But before that it could be helpful to have an account where you could try strats and have shitty ranks that isn't your main.
I don't think the issue is as much if it doesn't help, but if you can seriously advice people to solve your ladder anxiety by ruining the game for others. That is what making a smurf to get some easy wins is all about.
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From OP:
On December 22 2011 03:47 partysnatcher wrote:
If you don't want to put your account on the line to explore your “Current Skill”, a good compromise is to buy an additional SC2 “smurfing” account. Could be worth it - your smurf copy of SC2 might be a lot more fun than the first.
The smurf part probably wouldn't have been added if this post was written after patch 2.04 was released (this is a 5 years old post, in case you didn't notice), since unranked play does somewhat alleviate issues with "putting your account on the line."
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France12796 Posts
On February 14 2016 18:03 Sissors wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2016 13:08 Poopi wrote:On February 14 2016 02:21 opisska wrote:On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend. A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times. However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that. + Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference. So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear. So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it? On one hand, I can agree with you (why not let anyone have any advice, after all). On the other hand, I have mentioned that I think some of the advice is not only not helpful, but outright harmful for the receiver (make a smurf), some stems from OP's ignorance of the game and some is harmful generally to the goals I have about the game (I don't like to be not able to see my MMR just because other people are too sensitive for that). But I concede that me pointing out actual flaws can be easily hidden in the surrounding ranting In a somewhat tangential note, you would be surprised how much the "western" thinking you describe has taken over the "East" in the last two decades. What you describe, while stereotypical, would have been pretty spot on in the nineties, but it's really fading. I am just old enough I don't really see how a smurf isn't helpful. Sure now that there is unranked and that you can leave league, a smurf isn't mandatory. But before that it could be helpful to have an account where you could try strats and have shitty ranks that isn't your main. I don't think the issue is as much if it doesn't help, but if you can seriously advice people to solve your ladder anxiety by ruining the game for others. That is what making a smurf to get some easy wins is all about.
How would smurfs ruin the game for others?
If you do ladder ranked you'll have a 50%winrate given you play enough and are not bottom bronze or top gm
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On February 15 2016 06:31 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2016 18:03 Sissors wrote:On February 14 2016 13:08 Poopi wrote:On February 14 2016 02:21 opisska wrote:On February 14 2016 01:32 Cascade wrote:On February 13 2016 17:07 opisska wrote:Are you paid by Blizzard? "Buying a smurf account to solve ego issues" is the most insane thing I have ever read on this forum (and I have read some Shauni blogs and quite a lot of stuff from several different baskerville accounts ). What ego issues? Nobody cares about your account in SC2! Unless you are one of like 200 recognizable progamers, your nickname is completely irrelevant to anyone. Are you seriously suggesting that people spend real-life money because they have a delusion that somebody cares who they are? What the hell is the difference between having one account that nobody cares about and two? By this logic, you would probably need to buy a new account before every game and that would get expensive pretty quickly. While the post may show a lot of your knowledge about psychology (I really don't feel qualified to judge that), the whole part about "current and future skill" is wrong and shows that you know much less about the actual game. People aren't suddenly getting worse in SC2, "metagame" is a Bronze-league excuse and the vast majority of players is going to get better by playing, not worse. Yeah, since Blizzard removed actual demotions, people are being placed lower than before at the start of a season more frequently, but that's just a sane conservative approach (ironically used to solve a totally insane issue). Probably the worst thing is your introduction when you say how brutal the ladder system is. Stop that! The system is anything but brutal, it pussies out on purpose. I know there are many people like me, who would like to have a system that would for you be ... I don't know what word would you use, because I have no idea what comes after "brutal" - but system that would bluntly tell you how good you are instead of hiding it behind silly "leagues". Posts like this only reinforce Blizzard in their stance against that system. I am pretty pissed that I can't see my own information just because some other people think that they would get hurt by it. In short, I don't like your post, because uses probably sound science to reinforce idiocy. It also contributes to the trend of "I am not lame, I have a condition". Surely, there are people who have real mental health issues (hell, my wife has been treated for clinical depression for almost 15 years and I would never dare to even imply that it's not a real illness), but it's surely not half the SC2 playerbase as they are often trying to pretend. A lot of people are not like you. I very much appreciate the east-european I-dont-take-any-shit mentality, where you are expected to shrug of whatever happens to you. I love it, it's cool. I try to adapt it at times. And I can see that ladder fear is extremely silly and a "pussy" phenomenon from that life style. And from that point of view it is a correct assessment, and I agree with it to some extent, even though I myself suffer from it at times. However, the mentality and life style that people are brought up with in much of western Europe (and I guess US), is a lot more entitled and worried. You're expected to be on top of and in control of everything in and around your life. With that life style, it can be pretty demoralising to repeatedly get confirmation from battle net that you are in fact not at all on top of the sc2 ladder. You are not able to beat that other noob. You are actually pretty crap at it, and regularly lose to other players that you consider bad at the game. That can stop people from playing sc2, and do other things that fits better with their life style. This doesn't mean that you have a psychological condition, apart from being brought up in a western society if you want to count that. + Show Spoiler [political disclaimer] +Sorry for the stereotyping eastern/western Europeans. I hope no one is offended... I feel I have met enough of both to see this trend reliably, and many I have talked have agreed on this difference. So yes, it is an irrational feeling, and yes it is silly in a way, but you kindof have to acknowledge the empirical fact that a lot of players actually have it. Probably more so in some parts of the world than others. Blizzard may want to consider this fraction of their player base, and probably an even larger group of potential players, that doesn't play sc2 due to ladder fear. So if the OP has advice that can help, I think that's great. If you don't need it, good for you. But for those that do need it, why not let them have it? On one hand, I can agree with you (why not let anyone have any advice, after all). On the other hand, I have mentioned that I think some of the advice is not only not helpful, but outright harmful for the receiver (make a smurf), some stems from OP's ignorance of the game and some is harmful generally to the goals I have about the game (I don't like to be not able to see my MMR just because other people are too sensitive for that). But I concede that me pointing out actual flaws can be easily hidden in the surrounding ranting In a somewhat tangential note, you would be surprised how much the "western" thinking you describe has taken over the "East" in the last two decades. What you describe, while stereotypical, would have been pretty spot on in the nineties, but it's really fading. I am just old enough I don't really see how a smurf isn't helpful. Sure now that there is unranked and that you can leave league, a smurf isn't mandatory. But before that it could be helpful to have an account where you could try strats and have shitty ranks that isn't your main. I don't think the issue is as much if it doesn't help, but if you can seriously advice people to solve your ladder anxiety by ruining the game for others. That is what making a smurf to get some easy wins is all about. How would smurfs ruin the game for others? If you do ladder ranked you'll have a 50%winrate given you play enough and are not bottom bronze or top gm
I think there is a slight misunderstanding here. "Smurf" is often associated with someone that on purpose drops many leagues to troll in the lower leagues, which arguably destroys the game for others. OP however, I think, suggests to just try a bit less hard, and maybe only drop down half or a quarter of a league as a result, which I think most agree wouldn't ruin the experience for others.
But yeah, OP was before unranked play, so I think we shouldn't get too stuck on that detail.
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Also, OP was before the ranked was different for different races. Nowadays you can learn in ranked experience with the three races and have different leagues for each. Gives a lot of perspective on what you know on each race.
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I have anger issues, and its the thing that affects my anxiety, in all online games, not just SC, and its long term problem, not something that can be fixed over night.
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On December 22 2011 04:44 Fawkes wrote:
But how do I even get myself to press that Find Match button? I haven't played since Season 1 and I only played like 40 games back then too T.T I want to play...I just fear that button, and pretty much everything you mentioned.
go into general chat or adoptanoob chat, also check out the subreddit for your race or others and ask for a practice partner around your level
it's much less taxing losing to a friend then just some random asshole, and you can share pointers and stuff after the game
and if hes better than you and you eventually learn to beat him, you instantly feel satisfaction, where as ladder is just grinding forever untill you hit gm and then quit because that's the cap for most people
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i found over my years that the feeling of love (unrequited) is the same as the feeling of fear, worry, anxiety. it's the same fucking thing. just constant adrenaline, with a context. so, i grew to hate the feeling as a painful burden, rather than enjoy it as an excitement. (like, 5+ years of unrequited love will kill you). you can choose to do the same thing with ladder anxiety, i guess - either embrace it as excitement, or loath it
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That's a really interesting read OP. I think my own ladder anxiety was a product of me not wanting to have an assessment of my true skill. In my head I was good and I didn't want to know if I was as good as I thought :D. It actually didn't help at all that I was basically only winning the few times I played 1v1 (due to mostly MMR decay of course, and me playing at master-ish level against platinums and diamonds). I knew I was not playing at my real MMR and that scared me because I knew I'd soon have to face my limits. When I stopped thinking I was any good, the anxiety went away (but I also stopped playing the game altogether, so there is that).
The problem has never been there in 2v2, where my friends and I were actually somewhat good by all available measures. It was just fun to play. Since I've moved on from SC2 I haven't had any "ladder-type" anxiety in anything else, mostly because I just stopped thinking I was good at anything. It really makes things easier.
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What a nice read, thanks man great job.
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On June 19 2017 13:46 paxconsciente wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 04:44 Fawkes wrote:
But how do I even get myself to press that Find Match button? I haven't played since Season 1 and I only played like 40 games back then too T.T I want to play...I just fear that button, and pretty much everything you mentioned. go into general chat or adoptanoob chat, also check out the subreddit for your race or others and ask for a practice partner around your level it's much less taxing losing to a friend then just some random asshole, and you can share pointers and stuff after the game and if hes better than you and you eventually learn to beat him, you instantly feel satisfaction, where as ladder is just grinding forever untill you hit gm and then quit because that's the cap for most people
You responded to a post from 2011, before chatrooms even existed in the game at all.
Just thought you might like to know.
+EDIT: Good bump though, more people should read this.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SCqsU.png)
